SITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


MY    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


i 


MY 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


A    FRAGMENT 


BY  THE 

Rt.  Hon.  Professor  F.  MAX  MULLER,  K.M. 


H^ITH  PORTRAITS 


New  York 

CHARLES 

SCRIBNER'S 

1901 

SONS 

.  1    » 

Copyright,  1901,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW  omeCTOKT 
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PREFACE 

Foe  some  years  past  my  father  had,  in  the  in- 
tervals of  more  serious  work,  occupied  his  leisure 
moments  in  jotting  down  reminiscences  of  his  early 
^     life.    In  1898  and  1899  he  issued  the  two  volumes 
^     of  Auld  Lang  Syne,  which  contained  recollections 
M     of  his  friends,  but  very  little  about  his  own  life  and 
career.     In  the  Introductory  Chapter  to  the  Auto- 
biography he  explains  fully  the  reasons  which  led 
him,  at  his  advanced  age,  to  undertake  the  task  of 
4<    writing  his  own  Life,  and  he  began,  but  alas!   too 
late,  to  gather  together  the  fragments  that  he  had 
written  at  different  times.     But  even  during  the 
last  two  years  of  his  life,  and  after  the  first  attack 
of  the  illness  which  finally  proved  fatal,  he  would 
not  devote  himself  entirely  to  what  he  considered 
mere  recreation,  as  can  be  seen  from  such  a  work 
as  his  Six  Systems  of  Indian  Philosophy  published 
CN^in  May,    1889,   and  from  the  numerous   articles 
which  continued  to  appear  up  to  the  very  time  of 
his  death. 

During  the  last  weeks  of  his  life,  when  we  all 
knew  that  the  end  could  not  be  far  off,  the  Auto- 


•4 


r» .  *  .*  a  «•.  >  V  .<  *  J> 


VI 


Preface 


biography  was  constantly  in  his  thoughts,  and  his 
great  desire  was  to  leave  as  much  as  possible  ready 
for  publication.  Even  when  he  was  lying  in  bed 
far  too  weak  to  sit  up  in  a  chair,  he  continued  to 
work  at  the  manuscript  with  me.  I  would  read 
portions  aloud  to  him,  and  he  would  suggest  altera- 
tions and  dictate  additions.  I  see  that  we  were 
actually  at  work  on  this  up  to  the  19th  of  October, 
and  on  the  28th  he  was  taken  to  his  well-earned 
rest.  One  of  the  last  letters  that  I  read  to  him  was 
a  letter  from  Messrs.  Longmans,  his  life-long  pub- 
lishers, urging  the  publication  of  the  fragments  of 
the  Autobiography  that  he  had  then  written. 

My  father's  object  in  writing  his  Autobiography 
was  twofold :  firstly,  to  show  what  he  considered  to 
have  been  his  mission  in  life,  to  lay  bare  the  thread 
that  connected  all  his  labours;  and  secondly,  to 
encourage  young  struggling  scholars  by  letting  them 
see  how  it  had  been  possible  for  one  of  themselves, 
without  fortune,  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land,  to 
arrive  at  the  position  to  which  he  attained,  without 
ever  sacrificing  his  independence,  or  abandoning  the 
unprofitable  and  not  very  popular  subjects  to  which 
he  had  determined  to  devote  his  life. 

Unfortunately  the  last  chapter  takes  us  but  lit- 
tle beyond  the  threshold  of  his  career.  There  is 
enough,  however,  to  enable  us  to  see  how  from  his 
earliest  student  days  his  leanings  were  philosophical 
and  religious  rather  than  classical;  how  the  study 
of  Herbart's  philosophy  encouraged  him   in  the 


Preface  vii 

work  in  which  he  was  engaged  as  a  mere  student, 
the  Science  of  Language  and  Etymology;  how  his 
desire  to  know  something  special,  that  no  other  phi- 
losopher would  know,  led  him  to  explore  the  virgin 
fields  of  Oriental  literature  and  religions.  With 
this  motive  he  began  the  study  of  Arabic,  Persian, 
and  finally  Sanskrit,  devoting  himself  more  espe- 
cially to  the  latter  under  Brockhaus  and  Riickert, 
and  subsequently  under  Burnouf,  who  persuaded 
him  to  undertake  the  colossal  work  of  editing  the 
Rig-veda. 

The  Autobiography  breaks  off  before  the  end  of 
the  period  during  which  he  devoted  himself  ex- 
clusively to  Sanskrit.  It  is  idle  to  speculate  what 
course  his  life's  work  might  have  taken,  had  he  been 
elected  to  the  Boden  Professorship  of  Sanskrit;  but 
he  lived  long  enough  to  realize  that  his  rejection 
for  that  chair  in  1860,  which  was  so  hard  to  bear  at 
the  time,  was  really  a  blessing  in  disguise,  as  it 
enabled  him  to  turn  his  attention  to  more  general 
subjects,  and  devote  himself  to  those  philological, 
philosophical,  religious  and  mythological  studies, 
which  found  their  expression  in  a  series  of  works 
commencing  with  his  Lectures  on  the  Science  of 
Language,  1861,  and  terminating  with  his  Con- 
tributions to  the  Science  of  Mythology,  1897, — 
"the  thread  that  connects  the  origin  of  thought 

and  language  with  the  origin  of  mythology  and  re- 

1*  *      )j 
igion. 

As  to  his  advice  to  struggling  scholars,  the  self- 


viii  Preface 

depreciation,  which,  as  Professor  Jowett  said,  is  one 
of  the  greatest  dangers  of  an  autobiography,  makes 
my  father  rather  conceal  the  real  causes  of  his 
success  in  life.     He  even  goes  so  far  as  to  say, 
"  everything  in  my  career  came  about  most  natu- 
rally, not  by  my  own  effort,  but  owing  to  those  cir- 
cumstances or  to  that  environment,  of  which  we 
have  heard  so  much  of  late  "  :    or  again,  "  it  was 
really  my  friends  who  did  everything  for  me  and 
helped  me  over  many  a  stile  and  many  a  ditch." 
No  doubt  in  one  sense  this  is  true,  but  not  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  would  have  been  true  had  he,  when 
at  the  University,  accepted  the  offer  which  he  tells 
us  a  wealthy  cousin  made  him,  to  adopt  him  and 
send  him  into  the  Austrian  diplomatic  service,  and 
even  to  procure  him  a  wife  and  a  title  into  the  bar- 
gain.    The  friends  who  helped  him,  men  such  as 
Humboldt,  Burnouf,  Bunsen,  Stanley,  Kingsley, 
Liddell,  to  mention  only  a  few,  were  men  whose 
very  friendship  was  the  surest  proof  of  my  father's 
merits.    The  real  secret  of  his  success  lay  not  in  his 
friends,  but  in  himself; — in  the  knowledge  that  his 
success  or  failure  in  life  depended  entirely  on  his 
own  efforts;    in  the  fixity  of  purpose  which  made 
him  refuse  all  offers  that  would  lead  him  from  the 
pathway  that  he  had  laid  down  for  himself;  and  in 
the  unflagging  industry  with  which  he  strove  to 
reach  the  goal  of  his  ambition.     "  My  very  strug- 
gles," he  writes,  "  were  certainly  a  help  to  me." 
When  I  came  to  examine  the  manuscript  with 


Preface 


IX 


a  view  to  sending  it  to  press,  I  found  that  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  work  necessary  before  it  could 
be  published  in  book  form.  The  fragments  were 
in  many  cases  incomplete;  there  was  no  division 
into  chapters,  no  connexion  between  the  various 
periods  and  episodes  of  his  life;  important  incidents 
were  omitted;  while,  owing  to  the  intermittent  way 
in  which  he  had  been  writing,  there  were  frequent 
repetitions.  My  father  was  always  most  critical  of 
his  own  style,  and  would  often,  when  correcting  his 
proof-sheets,  alter  a  whole  page,  because  a  word  or 
a  phrase  displeased  him,  or  because  some  new  idea, 
some  happier  mode  of  expression,  occurred  to  him; 
but  in  the  case  of  his  Autobiography,  the  only  re- 
vision that  he  was  able  to  give,  was  on  his  death-bed, 
while  I  read  the  manuscript  aloud  to  him. 

My  father  points  out  how  rarely  the  sons  of  great 
musicians  or  great  painters  become  distinguished 
in  the  same  line  themselves.  "  It  seems,"  he  says, 
"  almost  as  if  the  artistic  talent  were  exhausted  by 
one  generation  or  one  individual  ";  and  I  fear  that, 
in  my  case  at  all  events,  the  same  remark  applies 
to  literary  talent.  I  have  done  my  best  to  string 
the  fragments  together  into  one  connected  whole, 
only  making  such  insertions,  elisions  and  alterations 
as  appeared  strictly  necessary.  Any  deficiency  in 
literary  style  that  may  be  noticeable  in  portions  of 
the  book  should  be  ascribed  to  the  inexperience  of 
the  editor. 

I  have  thought  it  right  to  insert  the  last  chapter. 


X  Preface 

which  I  call  "  A  Confession,"  though  I  am  not  sure 
that  my  father  intended  it  to  be  included  in  his 
Autobiography.  It  will,  however,  explain  the  at- 
titude which  he  observed  throughout  his  life,  in 
keeping  aloof,  as  far  as  possible,  from  the  arena  of 
academic  contention  at  Oxford.  He  was  never 
chosen  a  member  of  the  Hebdomadal  Council,  he 
rarely  attended  meetings  of  Convocation  or  Congre- 
gation ;  he  felt  that  other  people,  with  more  leisure 
at  their  disposal,  could  be  of  more  use  there;  but 
he  never  refused  to  work  for  his  University,  when 
he  felt  that  he  was  able  to  render  good  service, 
and  he  acted  for  years  as  a  Curator  of  the  Bodleian 
Library  and  of  the  Taylorian  Institute,  and  as  a 
Delegate  of  the  Clarendon  Press. 

With  reference  to  the  illustrations,  it  may  be  of 
interest  to  readers  to  know  that  the  portraits  of  my 
grandfather  and  grandmother  are  taken  from  pencil- 
drawings  by  Adolf  Hensel,  the  husband  of  Mendels- 
sohn's sister  Fanny,  herself  a  great  musician,  who, 
as  ray  father  tells  us  in  Auld  Lang  Syne,  really 
composed  several  of  the  airs  that  Mendelssohn  pub- 
lished as  his  Songs  without  Words.  The  last  por- 
trait of  my  father  is  from  a  photograph  taken  soon 
after  his  arrival  in  Oxford  by  his  great  friend  Thom- 
son, afterwards  Archbishop  of  York. 

Nothing  now  remains  for  me  but  to  acknowl- 
edge the  debt  that  I  owe  personally  to  this  book. 
"  Work,"  my  father  used  often  to  say  to  me,  "  is 
the  best  healer  of  sorrow.    In  grief  or  disappoint- 


Preface  xi 

ment,  try  hard  work;  it  will  not  fail  you."  And 
certainly  during  these  three  sad  months,  I  have 
proved  the  truth  of  this  saying.  He  could  not  have 
left  me  a  surer  comfort  or  more  welcome  distraction 
than  the  duty  of  preparing  for  press  these  pages,  the 
last  fruits  of  that  mind  which  remained  active  and 
fertile  to  the  last. 

W.  G.  MAX  MULLER. 

OxFOKD,  January,  1901. 


I 


i 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  FAOB 

I.  Introductory 1 

II.   Childhood  at  Dessau 46 

III.  School-days  at  Leipzig 97 

IV.  University 115 

V.   Paris 162 

VI.  Arrival  in  England 188 

VII.  Early  Days  at  Oxford 218 

VIII.  Early  Friends  at  Oxford  ....  272 

IX.  A  Confession 308 

INDEX , 319 


t 


.i 


LIST   OF   PORTRAITS 

F.   Max  MuLLEB,  Aged  Four  .      .      .        Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGB 

My  Father 46 

Mt  Mother 58 

F.  Max  Muller,  Aged  Fourteen    ....  106 

**  "       Aged  Twenty 156 

"  "       Aged  Thirty 268 


MY    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

After  the  publication  of  the  second  volume  of 
my  Auld  Lang  Syne,  1899,  I  had  a  good  deal 
of  correspondence,  of  public  criticism,  and  of  pri- 
vate communings  also  with  myself,  whether  I 
should  continue  my  biographical  records  in  the  form 
hitherto  adopted,  or  give  a  more  personal  char- 
acter to  my  recollections.  Some  of  my  friends 
were  evidently  dissatisfied.  "  The  recollections  of 
your  friends  and  the  account  of  the  influence  they 
exercised  on  you,"  they  said,  "  are  interesting,  no 
doubt,  as  far  as  they  go,  but  we  want  more.  We 
want  to  know  the  springs,  the  aspirations,  the 
struggles,  the  failures,  and  achievements  of  your 
life.  We  want  to  know  how  you  yourself  look  at 
yourself  and  at  your  past  life  and  its  various  inci- 
dents." What  they  really  wanted  was,  in  fact,  an 
autobiography.  "  !N^o  one,"  as  a  friend  of  mine, 
not  an  Irishman,  said,  "  could  do  that  so  well  as 
yourself,  and  you  will  never  escape  a  biographer." 
I  confess  that  did  not  frighten  me  very  much.     I 


2  My  Autobiography- 

did  not  think  the  danger  of  a  biography  very  im- 
minent. Besides,  I  had  abeady  revised  two  biog- 
raphies and  several  biographical  notices  even  dur- 
ing my  lifetime.  !No  sensible  man  ought  to  care 
about  posthumous  praise  or  posthumous  blame. 
Enough  for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof.  Our  con- 
temporaries are  our  right  judges,  our  peers  have 
to  give  their  votes  in  the  gTeat  academies  and 
learned  societies,  and  if  they  on  the  whole  are  not 
dissatisfied  with  the  little  we  have  done,  often  under 
far  greater  difficulties  than  the  world  was  aware 
of,  why  should  we  care  for  the  distant  future? 
"Who  was  a  greater  giant  in  philosophy  than  Hegel? 
Who  towered  higher  than  Darwin  in  natural 
science  ?  Yet  in  one  of  the  best  German  reviews  ^ 
the  following  words  of  a  young  German  biologist  ^ 
are  quoted,  and  not  without  a  certain  approval: 
"  Darwinism  belongs  now  to  history,  like  that  other 
curiosum  of  our  century,  the  Hegelian  philosophy. 
Both  are  variations  on  the  theme.  How  can  a  gen- 
eration be  led  by  the  nose?  and  they  are  not  calcu- 
lated to  raise  our  departing  century  in  the  eyes  of 
later  generations." 

If  I  was  afraid  of  anything,  it  was  not  so  much 
the  severity  of  future  judges,  as  the  extreme  kind- 
ness and  leniency  which  distinguish  most  biogra- 
phies in  our  days.  It  is  true,  it  would  not  be  easy 
for  those  who  have  hereafter  to  report  on  our  labours 

>  Deutsche  Rundschau,  Feb.,  1900,  p.  249. 

*  Drieach,  Biologisches  Centralllatt,  1896,  p.  335. 


Introductory  3 

to  discover  the  red  thread  that  runs  through  all  of 
them  from  our  first  stammerings  to  our  latest  mur- 
murings.  It  might  be  said  that  in  my  own  ease  the 
thread  that  connects  all  my  labours  is  very  visible, 
namely,  the  thread  that  connects  the  origin  of 
thought  and  languages  with  the  origin  of  mythol- 
ogy and  religion.  Everything  I  have  done  was,  no 
doubt,  subordinate  to  these  four  great  problems, 
but  to  lay  bare  the  connecting  links  between  what 
I  have  written  and  what  I  wanted  to  write  and  never 
found  time  to  write,  is  by  no  means  easy,  not  even 
for  the  author  himself.  Besides,  what  author  has 
ever  said  the  last  word  he  wanted  to  sav,  and  who 
has  not  had  to  close  his  eyes  before  he  could  write 
Finis  to  his  work?  There  are  many  things  still 
which  I  should  like  to  say,  but  I  am  getting  tired, 
and  others  will  say  them  much  better  than  I  could, 
and  will  no  doubt  carry  on  the  work  where  I  had  to 
leave  it  unfinished.  We  owe  much  to  others,  and 
we  have  to  leave  much  to  others.  For  throAving 
light  on  such  points  an  autobiography  is,  no  doubt, 
better  adapted  than  any  biography  written  by  a 
stranger,  if  only  we  can  at  the  same  time  complete- 
ly forget  that  the  man  who  is  described  is  the  same 
as  the  man  who  describes. 

"  Friends,"  as  Professor  Jowett  said,  "  always 
think  it  necessary  (except  Boswell,  that  great 
genius)  to  tell  lies  about  their  deceased  friend;  they 
leave  out  all  his  faults  lest  the  public  should  exag- 
gerate them.     But  we  want  to  know  his  faults. 


4  My  Autobiography 

— that  is  probably  the  most  interesting  part  of 
him." 

Jowett  knew  quite  well,  and  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  say  so,  that  to  do  much  good  in  this  world,  you 
must  be  a  very  able  and  honest  man,  thinking  of 
nothing  else  day  and  night;  and  he  adds,  "you 
must  also  be  a  considerable  piece  of  a  rogue,  having 
many  reticences  and  concealments;  and  I  believe  a 
good  sort  of  roguery  is  never  to  say  a  word  against 
anybody,  however  much  they  may  deserve  it." 

Now  Professor  Jowett  has  certainly  done  some 
good  work  at  Oxford,  but  if  any  one  were  to  say 
that  he  also  was  a  considerable  piece  of  a  rogue,  what 
an  outcry  there  would  be  among  the  sons  of  Balliol. 
Jowett  thought  that  the  only  chance  of  a  good  bi- 
ography was  for  a  man  to  write  memoirs  of  him- 
self, and  what  a  pity  that  he  did  not  do  so  in  his 
o\vn  case.  His  friends,  however,  who  had  to  write 
his  Life  were  wise,  and  he  escaped  what  of  late  has 
happened  to  several  eminent  men.  He  escaped  the 
testimonials  for  this,  and  testimonials  for  another 
life,  such  as  they  are  often  published  in  our  days. 

Testimonials  are  bad  enough  in  this  life,  when 
we  have  to  select  one  out  of  many  candidates  as 
best  fitted  for  an  office,  and  it  is  but  natural  that 
the  electors  will  hardly  ever  look  at  them,  but  will 
try  to  get  their  information  through  some  other 
channel.  But  what  are  called  post  obit  testimonials 
really  go  beyond  everything  yet  known  in  funeral 
panegyrics.    Of  course,  as  no  one  is  asked  for  such 


Introductory  5 

testimonials  except  those  who  are  known  to  have 
been  friends  of  the  departed,  these  testimonials 
hardly  ever  contain  one  word  of  blame.  One  feels 
ashamed  to  write  such  testimonials,  but  if  you  are 
asked,  what  can  you  do  without  giving  offence  ?  We 
are  placed  altogether  in  a  false  position.  Let  any 
one  try  to  speak  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth, 
and  he  will  find  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  put 
down  anything  that  in  the  slightest  way  might  seem 
to  reflect  on  the  departed.  The  mention  of  the  most 
innocent  failings  in  an  obituary  notice  is  sure  to 
offend  somebody,  the  widow  or  the  children,  or  some 
dear  friend.  I  thought  that  my  Recollections  had 
hitherto  contained  nothing  that  could  possibly  of- 
fend anybody,  nothing  that  could  not  have  been 
published  during  the  lifetime  of  the  man  to  whom 
it  referred.  But  no ;  I  had  ever  so  many  complaints, 
and  I  gladly  left  out,  in  later  editions,  names  which 
in  many  cases  were  really  of  no  consequence  com- 
pared with  what  they  said  and  did. 

Surely  every  man  has  his  faults  and  his  little 
and  often  ridiculous  weaknesses,  and  these  weak- 
nesses belong  quite  as  much  to  a  man's  character  as 
his  strength;  nay,  with  the  suppression  of  the  for- 
mer the  latter  would  often  become  almost  unintel- 
ligible. 

I  like  the  biographies  of  such  friends  of  mine  as 
Dean  Stanley,  Charles  Kingsley,  and  Baron  Bun- 
sen.  But  even  these  are  deficient  in  those  shadows 
which  would  but  help  to  bring  out  all  the  more  clear- 


6  My  Autobiography 

ly  the  bright  points  in  their  character.  We  should 
remember  the  words  of  Dr.  Wendell  Holmes :  "  We 
all  want  to  draw  perfect  ideals,  and  all  the  coin  that 
comes  from  Nature's  mint  is  more  or  less  clipped, 
filed,  '  sweated,'  or  bruised,  and  bent  and  worn, 
even  if  it  was  pure  metal  when  stamped,  which  is 
more  than  we  can  claim,  I  suppose,  for  anything 
human."  True,  very  true;  and  what  would  the  de- 
parted himself  say  to  such  biographies  as  are  now 
but  too  common, — most  flattering  pictures  no  doubt, 
but  pictures  without  one  spot  or  wrinkle?  In  Ger- 
many it  was  formerly  not  an  uncommon  thing  for 
the  author  of  a  book  to  write  a  self-review  (Selbst- 
Kritik),  and  these  were  generally  far  better  than 
reviews  written  by  friends  or  enemies.  For  who 
knows  the  strong  and  weak  points  of  a  book  so  well 
as  the  author?  True;  but  a  whole  life  is  more  diffi- 
cult to  review  and  to  criticize  than  a  single  book. 
Nevertheless  it  must  be  admitted  that  an  autobi- 
ography has  many  advantages,  and  it  might  be  well 
if  every  man  of  note,  nay,  every  man  who  has  some- 
thing to  say  for  himself  that  he  wishes  posterity  to 
know,  should  say  it  himself.  This  would  in  time 
form  a  wonderful  archive  for  psychological  study. 
Something  of  the  kind  has  been  done  already  at 
Berlin  in  preserving  private  correspondences.  Of 
course  it  is  difficult  to  keep  such  archives  within 
reasonable  limits,  but  here  again  I  am  not  afraid 
of  self-laudation  so  much  as  of  self-depreciation. 
Professor  Jowett,  who  did  not  write  his  own  bi- 


Introductory  y 

ography,  was  quite  right  in  saying  that  there  is 
great  danger  of  an  autobiography  being  rather  self- 
depreciatory ;  there  is  certainly  something  so  nause- 
ous in  self-praise  that  most  people  would  shrink  far 
more  from  self-praise  than  from  self-blame.  There 
may  be  some  kind  of  subtle  self-admiration  even  in 
the  fault-finding  of  an  out-spoken  autobiographer; 
but  who  can  dive  into  those  deepest  depths  of  the 
human  soul?  To  me  it  seems  that  if  an  honest  man 
takes  himself  by  the  neck,  and  shakes  himself,  he 
can  do  it  far  better  than  anybody  else,  and  the 
castigation,  if  well  deserved,  comes  certainly  with 
a  far  better  grace  from  himself  than  if  administered 
by  others. 

Few  men,  I  believe,  know  their  real  goodness  and 
greatness.  Some  of  the  most  handsome  women,  so 
we  are  assured,  pass  through  life  without  ever  know- 
ing from  their  looking-glass  that  they  are  hand- 
some. And  it  is  certainly  true  that  men,  from  sad 
experience,  know  their  w^eak  points  far  better  than 
their  good  points,  which  they  look  on  as  no  more 
than  natural. 

The  Autos,  for  instance,  described  by  John 
Stuart  Mill,  has  no  cause  to  be  grateful  to  the  Autos 
that  wrote  his  biography.  Mill  had  been  threatened 
by  several  future  biographers,  and  he  therefore 
wrote  the  short  biographical  account  of  himself  al- 
most in  self-defence.  But  besides  the  truly  miracu- 
lous, and,  if  related  by  anybody  else,  hardly  credible 
achievements  of  his  early  boyhood  and  youth,  his 


8  My  Autobiography 

great  achievements  in  later  Hfe,  the  influence  which 
he  exercised  both  bj  his  writings  and  still  more  by 
his  personal  and  public  character,  would  have  found 
a  far  more  eloquent  and  truthful  interpreter  in  a 
stranger  than  in  Mill  himself.  I  remember  another 
case  where  a  most  distinguished  author  tried  to 
escape  the  oil  and  the  blessings,  perhaps  the  opposite 
also,  from  the  hands  of  his  future  biographers. 
Froude  destroyed  the  whole  of  his  correspondence, 
and  he  wished  particularly  that  all  letters  written 
to  him  in  the  fullest  confidence  should  be  burnt, — 
and  they  were.  I  think  it  was  a  pity,  for  I  know 
what  valuable  letters  were  destroyed  in  that  auto  da 
fe;  and  yet  when  he  had  done  all  this,  he  seems  to 
have  been  seized  with  fear,  and  just  before  he  re- 
turned to  Oxford  as  Regius  Professor  of  Modern 
History  he  began  to  write  a  sketch  of  his  own  life, 
which  was  found  among  his  papers.  Interesting  it 
certainly  was,  but  fortunately  his  best  friends  pre- 
vented its  publication.  It  would  have  added  noth- 
ing to  what  we  know  of  him  in  his  writings,  and 
would  never  have  put  his  real  merits  in  their  proper 
light.  Besides,  it  came  to  an  end  with  his  youth  and 
told  us  little  of  his  real  life. 

I  flattered  myself  that  I  had  found  the  true  way 
out  of  all  these  difficulties,  by  writing  not  exactly 
my  own  life,  but  recollections  of  my  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances who  had  influenced  me  most,  and  guid- 
ed me  in  my  not  always  easy  passage  through  life. 
As  in  describing  the  course  of  a  river,  we  cannot 


Introductory  9 

do  better  than  to  describe  tbe  shores  which  hem  in 
and  divert  the  river  and  are  reflected  on  its  waves, 
I  thought  that  by  describing  my  environment,  my 
friends,  and  fellow  workers,  I  could  best  describe 
the  course  of  my  own  life.  I  hoped  also  that  in  this 
way  I  myself  could  keep  as  much  as  possible  in  the 
background,  and  yet  in  describing  the  wooded  or 
rocky  shores  with  their  herds,  their  cottages,  and 
churches,  describe  their  reflected  image  on  the  pass- 
ing river. 

But  now  I  am  asked  to  give  a  much  fuller  ac- 
count of  myself,  not  only  of  what  I  have  seen,  but 
also  of  what  I  have  been,  what  were  the  objects  or 
ideals  of  my  life,  how  far  I  have  succeeded  in  carry- 
ing them  out,  and,  as  I  said,  how  often  I  have  failed 
to  accomplish  what  I  had  sketched  out  as  my  task 
in  life.  People  wished  to  know  how  a  boy,  born  and 
educated  in  a  small  and  almost  unknown  town  in 
the  centre  of  Germany,  should  have  come  to  Eng- 
land, should  have  been  chosen  there  to  edit  the 
oldest  book  of  the  world,  the  Veda  of  the  Brahmans, 
never  published  before,  whether  in  India  or  in  Eu- 
rope, should  have  passed  the  best  part  of  his  life  as 
a  professor  in  the  most  famous  and,  as  it  was  thought, 
the  most  exclusive  University  in  England,  and 
should  actually  have  ended  his  days  as  a  Member 
of  Her  Majesty's  most  honourable  Privy  Council. 
I  confess  myself  it  seems  a  very  strange  career,  yet 
everything  came  about  most  naturally,  not  by  my 
own  effort,  but  owing  again  to  those  circumstances 


10  My  Autobiography 

or  to  that  environment  of  which  we  have  heard  so 
much  of  late. 

Young,  struggling  men  also  have  written  to  me, 
and  asked  me  how  I  managed  to  keep  my  head  above 
water  in  that  keen  struggle  for  life  that  is  always 
going  on  in  the  whirlpool  of  the  learned  world  of 
England.  They  knew,  for  I  had  never  made  any 
secret  of  it,  how  poor  I  was  in  worldly  goods,  and 
how,  as  I  said  at  Glasgow,  I  had  nothing  to  depend 
on  after  I  left  the  University,  but  those  fingers  with 
which  I  still  hold  my  pen  and  write  so  badly  that  I 
can  hardly  read  my  manuscript  myself.  When  I 
arrived  I  had  no  family  connections  in  England, 
nor  any  influential  friends,  "  and  yet,"  I  was  told, 
"  in  a  foreign  country,  you  managed  to  reach  the 
top  of  your  profession.  Tell  us  how  you  did  it; 
and  how  you  preserved  at  the  same  time  your  in- 
dependence and  never  forsook  the  not  very  popular 
subjects,  such  as  language,  mythology,  religion,  and 
philosophy,  on  which  you  continued  to  write  to  the 
very  end  of  your  life." 

I  generally  said  that  most  of  these  questions  could 

best  be  answered  from  my  books,  but  they  replied 

that  few  people  had  time  to  read  all  I  had  written, 

and  many  would  feel  grateful  for  a  thread  to  lead 

them  through  this  labyrinth  of  books,  essays,  and 

pamphlets,  which  have  issued  from  my  workshop 

during  the  last  fifty  years.^ 

'  As  giving  a  clear  and  complete  abstract  of  my  writings  I 
may  now  recommend  M.  Montcalm's  Vorigint  dt  la  Pensee  ct 
de  la  Parole,,  Taris,  I'JOO. 


Introductory  1 1 

All  I  could  say  was  that  each  man  must  find  his 
own  way  in  life,  but  if  there  was  any  secret  about 
my  success,  it  was  simply  due  to  the  fact  that  I  had 
perfect  faith,  and  went  on  never  doubting  even 
when  everything  looked  grey  and  black  about  me. 
I  felt  convinced  that  what  I  cared  for,  and  what  I 
thought  worthy  of  a  whole  life  of  hard  work,  must 
in  the  end  be  recognized  by  others  also  as  of  value, 
and  as  worthy  of  a  certain  support  from  the  public. 
Had  not  Layard  gained  a  hearing  for  Assyrian 
bulls?  Did  not  Darwin  induce  the  world  to  take  an 
interest  in  Worms,  and  in  the  Fertilization  of  Or- 
chids? And  should  the  oldest  book  and  the  oldest 
thoughts  of  the  Aryan  world  remain  despised  and 
neglected? 

For  many  years  I  never  thought  of  appointments 
or  of  getting  on  in  the  world  in  a  pecuniary  sense. 
My  friends  often  laughed  at  me,  and  when  I  think 
of  it  now,  I  confess  I  must  have  seemed  very 
Quixotic  to  many  of  those  who  tried  for  this  and 
that,  got  lucrative  appointments,  married  rich  wives, 
became  judges  and  bishops,  ambassadors  and  minis- 
ters, and  could  hardly  understand  what  I  was  driv- 
ing at  with  my  Sanskrit  manuscripts,  my  proof- 
sheets  and  re"vases.  Perhaps  I  did  not  know  myself. 
Still  I  was  not  quite  so  foolish  as  they  imagined. 
True,  I  declined  several  offers  made  to  me  which 
seemed  very  advantageous  in  a  worldly  sense,  but 
would  have  separated  me  entirely  from  my  favour- 
ite work. 


12  My  Autobiography 

When  at  last  a  professorship  of  Modern  Litera- 
ture was  offered  me  at  Oxford,  I  made  up  my  mind, 
though  it  was  not  exactly  what  I  should  have  liked, 
to  give  up  half  of  my  time  to  studies  required  by 
this  professorship,  keeping  half  of  my  time  for  the 
Yeda  and  for  Sanskrit  in  general.  This  was  not  so 
bad  after  all.  People  often  laughed  at  me  for 
being  professor  of  the  most  modern  languages,  and 
giving  so  much  of  my  time  and  labour  to  the  most 
ancient  language  and  literature  in  the  world.  Per- 
haps it  was  not  quite  right  my  giving  up  so  much  of 
my  time  to  modern  languages,  a  subject  so  remote 
from  my  work  in  life,  but  it  was  a  concession  which 
I  could  make  with  a  good  conscience,  having  always 
held  that  language  was  one  and  indivisible,  and 
that  there  never  had  been  a  break  between  Sanskrit, 
Latin,  and  French,  or  Sanskrit,  Gothic,  and  Ger- 
man. One  of  my  first  lectures  at  Oxford  was  "  On 
the  antiquity  of  modern  languages,"  so  that  I  gave 
full  notice  to  the  University  as  to  how  I  meant  to 
treat  my  subject,  and  on  the  whole  the  University 
seems  to  have  been  satisfied  with  my  professorial 
work,  so  that  when  afterwards  for  very  good 
reasons,  whether  financial,  theological,  or  national, 
I,  or  rather  my  friends,  failed  to  secure  a  majority 
in  Convocation  for  a  professorship  of  Sanskrit,  the 
University  actually  founded  for  me  a  Professorship 
of  Comparative  Philology,  an  honour  of  which 
I  had  never  dreamt,  and  to  secure  which  I  certainly 
had  never  taken  any  steps. 


Introductory  13 

Here  is  all  my  secret.  At  first,  as  I  said,  it  re- 
quired faith,  but  it  also  required  for  many  years  a 
perfect  indifference  as  to  worldly  success.  And 
here  again  in  my  career  as  a  Sanskrit  scholar,  mere 
circumstances  were  of  great  importance.  They 
were  circumstances  which  I  was  glad  to  accept,  but 
which  I  could  never  have  created  myself.  It  was 
surely  a  mere  accident  that  the  Directors  of  the  Old 
East  India  Company  voted  a  large  sum  of  money 
for  printing  the  six  large  quartos  of  the  Rig-veda  of 
about  a  thousand  pages  each.  It  was  at  the  time 
when  the  fate  of  the  Company  hung  in  the  balance, 
and  when  Bunsen,  the  Prussian  Minister,  made 
himself  persona  grata  by  delivering  a  speech  at  one 
of  the  public  dinners  in  the  City,  setting  forth  in 
eloquent  words  the  undeniable  merits  of  the  Old 
Company  and  the  wonderful  work  they  had 
achieved.  It  was  likewise  a  mere  accident  that  I 
should  have  become  known  to  Bunsen,  and  that  he 
should  have  shown  me  so  much  kindness  in  my  liter- 
ary work.  He  had  himself  tried  hard  to  go  to  India 
to  discover  the  Rig-veda,  nay,  to  find  out  whether 
there  was  still  such  a  thing  as  the  Veda  in  India. 
The  same  Bunsen,  His  Excellency  Baron  Bunsen, 
the  Prussian  Minister  in  London,  on  his  own  accord 
went  afterwards  to  see  the  Chairman  and  the  Di- 
rectors of  the  East  India  Company,  and  explained 
to  them  what  the  Rig-veda  was,  and  that  it  would 
be  a  real  disgrace  if  such  a  work  were  published  in 
Germany ;  and  they  agreed  to  vote  a  sum  of  money 


14  My  Autobiography 

such  as  they  had  never  voted  before  for  any  literary 
undertaking.  Though  after  the  mutiny  nothing 
could  save  them,  I  had  at  least  the  satisfaction  of 
dedicating  the  first  volume  of  my  edition  of  the 
Rig-veda  to  the  Chairman  and  the  Directors  of  the 
much  abused  East  India  Company, — much  abused 
though  splendidly  defended  also  by  no  less  a  man 
than  John  Stuart  Mill. 

This  is  what  I  mean  by  friends  and  circum- 
stances, and  that  is  the  environment  which  I  wished 
to  describe  in  my  Recollections  instead  of  always 
dwelling  on  what  I  meant  to  do  myself  and  what 
I  did  myself.  Small  and  large  things  work 
wonderfully  together.  It  was  the  change  threaten- 
ing the  government  of  India,  and  a  mighty  change 
it  was,  that  gave  me  the  chance  of  publishing  the 
Veda,  a  very  small  matter  as  it  may  seem  in  the 
eyes  of  most  people,  and  yet  intended  to  bring  about 
quite  as  mighty  a  change  in  our  views  of  the  ancient 
people  of  the  world,  particularly  of  their  languages 
and  religions.  This,  too — the  development  of  lan- 
guage and  religion — seems  of  importance  to  some 
people  who  do  not  care  two  straws  for  the  East  India 
Company,  particularly  if  it  helps  us  to  learn  what 
we  really  are  ourselves,  and  how  we  came  to  be  what 
we  are. 

In  one  sense  biographies  and  autobiographies  are 
certainly  among  the  most  valuable  materials  for  the 
historian.  Biography,  as  Heinrich  Simon,  not 
Ilenri  Simon,  said,  is  the  best  kind  of  history,  and 


Introductory  15 

the  life  of  one  man,  if  laid  open  before  us  with  all 
he  thought  and  all  he  did,  gives  us  a  better  insight 
into  the  history  of  his  time  than  any  general  ac- 
count of  it  can  possibly  do, 

Kow  it  is  quite  true  that  the  life  of  a  quiet  scholar 
has  little  to  do  with  history,  except  it  may  be  the 
history  of  his  own  branch  of  study,  which  some  peo- 
ple consider  quite  unimportant,  while  to  others  it 
seems  all-important.  This  is  as  it  ought  to  be,  till 
the  universal  historian  finds  the  right  perspective, 
and  assigns  to  each  branch  of  study  and  activity  its 
proper  place  in  the  panorama  of  the  progress  of  man- 
kind towards  its  ideals.  Even  a  quiet  scholar,  if  he 
keeps  his  eyes  open,  may  now  and  then  see  some- 
thing that  is  of  importance  to  the  historian.  AVhile 
I  was  living  in  small  rooms  at  Leipzig,  or  lodging 
au  cinquieme  in  the  Rue  Royale  at  Paris,  or  copy- 
ing manuscripts  in  a  dark  room  of  the  old  East  India 
House  in  Leadenhall  Street,  I  now  and  then  caught 
glimpses  of  the  mighty  stream  of  history  as  it  was 
rushing  by.  At  Leipzig  I  saw  much  of  Robert 
Blum  who  was  afterwards  fusiUe  at  Vienna  by 
Windischgratz  in  defiance  of  all  international  law,  for 
he  was  a  member  of  the  German  Diet,  then  sitting 
at  Frankfurt.  From  my  windows  at  Paris  I  looked 
over  the  Boulevard  de  la  Madeleine,  and  do-uTi  on  the 
right  to  the  Chamhre  des  Deputes,  and  I  saw  from 
my  windows  the  throne  of  Louis  Philippe  carried 
along  by  its  four  legs  by  four  women  on  horseback, 
with  Phrygian  caps  and  red  scarfs,  and  I  saw  the 


l6  My  Autobiography 

next  morning  from  the  same  windows  the  stretchers 
carrying  the  dead  and  woimded  from  the  Boulevards 
to  a  hospital  at  the  back  of  my  street.  In  my  small 
study  at  the  East  India  House  I  saw  several  of  the 
Directors,  Colonel  Sykes  and  others,  and  heard 
them  discussing  the  fate  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany and  of  the  vast  empire  of  India  too,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  private  interests  of  those  who  hoped 
to  be  Members  of  the  new  India  Council,  and  those 
who  despaired  of  that  distinction.  I  was  the  first 
to  bring  the  news  of  the  French  Revolution  in  Feb- 
ruary to  London,  and  presented  a  bullet  that  had 
smashed  the  windows  of  my  room  at  Paris,  to  Bun- 
sen,  who  took  it  in  the  evening  to  Lord  Palmerston. 
After  I  had  seen  the  Revolution  in  Paris  and  the 
flight  of  the  King  and  the  Duchesse  d'Orleans,  I  was 
in  time  to  see  in  London  the  Chartist  Deputation 
to  Parliament,  and  the  assembled  police  in  Trafal- 
gar Square,  when  Louis  Napoleon  served  as  a 
Special  Constable,  and  I  heard  the  Duke  of  Well- 
ington explain  to  Bunsen,  that  though  no  soldier 
was  seen  in  the  streets  there  was  artillery  hidden 
under  the  bridges,  and  ready  to  act  if  wanted.  I 
could  add  more,  but  I  must  not  anticipate,  and 
after  all,  to  me  all  these  great  events  seemed  but 
small  compared  with  a  new  manuscript  of  the  Veda 
sent  from  India,  or  a  better  reading  of  an  obscure 
passage.  Diversos  diversa  iuvant,  and  it  is  fort- 
unate that  it  should  be  so. 

All  these  things,  I  thought,  should  form  part  of 


Introductory  17 

my  Eecollections,  and  my  own  little  self  should 
disappear  as  much  as  possible.  Even  the  pronoun 
I  should  meet  the  reader  but  seldom,  though  in 
Recollections  it  was  as  impossible  to  leave  it  out 
altogether  as  it  would  be  to  take  away  the  lens  from 
a  photographic  camera.  Now  I  believe  I  have  al- 
ways been  most  willing  to  yield  to  my  friends,  and 
I  shall  in  this  matter  also  yield  to  them  so  far  that 
in  the  Recollections  which  follow  there  will  be  more 
of  my  inward  and  outward  struggles;  but  I  must 
on  the  whole  adhere  to  my  old  plan.  I  could  not, 
if  I  would,  neglect  the  environment  of  my  life,  and 
the  many  friends  that  advised  and  helped  me,  and 
enabled  me  to  achieve  the  little  that  I  may  have 
achieved  in  my  own  line  of  study. 

If  my  friends  had  been  different  from  what  they 
were,  should  I  not  have  become  a  different  man 
myself,  whether  for  good  or  for  evil?  And  the  same 
applies  to  our  natural  surroundings  also.  And  here 
I  must  invoke  the  patience  of  my  readers,  if  I  try 
to  explain  in  as  few  words  as  possible  what  I  think 
about  environment,  and  what  about  heredity  or 
atavism. 

I  was  a  thorough  Darwinian  in  ascribing  the 
shaping  of  my  career  to  environment,  though  I  was 
always  very  averse  to  atavism,  of  which  we  have 
heard  so  much  lately  in  most  biographies.  Even 
with  respect  to  environment,  however,  I  could  not 
go  quite  so  far  as  certain  of  our  Darwinian  friends, 
who  maintain  that  everything  is  the  result  of  envi- 


1 8  My  Autobiography 

ronment,  or  translated  into  biographical  language, 
that  everybody  is  a  creature  of  circumstances.  No, 
I  could  not  go  so  far  as  that.  Environment  may 
shape  our  course  and  may  shape  us,  but  there  must 
be  something  that  is  shaped,  and  allows  itself  to  be 
shaped.  I  was  once  seriously  asked  by  one  who 
considers  himself  a  Darwiuian  whether  I  did  not 
know  that  the  Mammoth  was  driven  by  the  extreme 
cold  of  the  Pleiocene  Period  to  grow  a  thick  fur  in 
his  struggle  for  life.  That  he  grew  then  a  thicker 
fur,  I  knew,  but  that  surely  does  not  explain  the 
whole  of  the  Mammoth,  with  and  without  a  thick 
fur,  before  and  after  the  fur.  It  is  really  a  pity  to 
see  for  how  many  of  these  downright  absurdities 
Darwin  is  made  responsible  by  the  Darwinians.  He 
has  clearly  shown  how  in  many  cases  the  individual 
may  be  modified  almost  beyond  recognition  by 
environment,  but  the  individual  nmst  always  have 
been  there  first.  Before  we  had  a  spaniel  and  a 
Newfoundland  dog  there  must  have  been  some 
kind  of  dog,  neither  so  small  as  the  spaniel  nor  so 
large  as  the  Newfoundland,  and  no  one  would  now 
doubt  that  these  two  belonged  to  the  same  species 
and  presupposed  some  kind  of  a  less  modified  canine 
creature.  It  is  equally  true  that  every  individual 
man  has  been  modified  by  his  surroundings  or  en- 
vironment, if  not  to  the  same  extent  as  certain  ani- 
mals, yet  very  considerably,  as  in  the  case  of  Kas- 
par  Hauser,  the  man  with  the  iron  mask,  or  the 
mutineers  of  the  Bounty  in  the  Pitcairn  Islands. 


Introductory  ig 

But  there  must  have  been  the  man  first,  before  he 
could  be  so  modified.  Now  it  was  this  very  indi- 
vidual, my  own  self  in  fact,  the  spiritual  self  even 
more  than  the  physical,  that  interested  my  critics, 
while  I  thought  that  the  circumstances  which 
moulded  that  self  would  be  of  far  greater  interest 
than  the  self  itself.  Of  course  all  the  modifications 
that  men  now  undergo  are  nothing  if  compared  to 
the  early  modifications  which  produced  what  we 
speak  of  as  racial,  linguistic,  or  even  national  pe- 
culiarities. That  we  are  English  or  German,  that 
we  are  white  or  black,  nay,  if  you  like,  that  we  are 
human  beings  at  all,  all  this  has  modified  our  self, 
or  our  germ-plasm,  far  more  powerfully  than  any- 
thing that  can  happen  to  us  as  individuals  now. 

When  my  friends  and  readers  assured  me  that  an 
account  of  my  early  struggles  in  the  battle  of  life 
would  be  useful  to  many  a  young,  struggling  man, 
all  I  could  say  was  that  here  again  it  was  really  my 
friends  who  did  everything  for  me,  and  helped  me 
over  many  a  stile,  and  many  a  ditch,  nay,  without 
whom  I  should  never  have  done  whatever  I  did  for 
the  Sciences  of  Language,  of  ]\rythology,  and  Relig- 
ion, in  fact  for  Anthropology  in  the  widest  sense 
of  that  word.  My  very  struggles  were  certainly  a 
lielp  to  me,  even  my  opponents  were  most  useful  to 
me.  The  subjects  on  which  I  wrote  had  hardly 
been  touched  on  in  England,  at  least  from  the  his- 
torical point  of  view  which  I  took,  and  I  had  not 
only  to  overcome  the  indifi'erence  of  the  public,  but 


20  My  Autobiography 

to  disarm  as  much  as  possible  the  prejudices  often 
felt,  and  sometimes  expressed  also,  against  any- 
thing made  in  Gei*many!  Now  I  confess  I  could 
never  understand  such  a  prejudice  among  men  of 
science.  Was  I  more  right  or  more  wrong  because 
I  was  born  in  Germany  ?  Is  scientific  truth  the  ex- 
clusive property  of  one  nation,  of  Germany,  or  of 
England?  If  I  say  two  and  two  make  four  in  Ger- 
man, is  that  less  true  because  it  is  said  by  a  Ger- 
man? and  if  I  say,  no  language  without  thought, 
no  thought  without  language,  has  that  anything  to 
do  with  my  native  country?  The  prejudice  against 
strangers  and  particularly  against  Germans  is,  no 
doubt,  much  stronger  now  than  it  was  at  the  time 
when  I  first  came  to  England.  I  had  spent  nearly 
two  years  in  Paris,  and  there  too  there  existed  then 
so  little  of  unfriendly  feeling  towards  Germany, 
that  one  of  the  best  reviews  to  which  the  rising 
scholars  and  best  writers  of  Paris  contributed  wag 
actually  called  Revue  Germanique.  AVlio  would 
now  venture  to  publish  in  Paris  such  a  review  and 
under  such  a  title?  If  there  existed  such  an  anti- 
German  feeling  anywhere  in  England  when  I  ar- 
rived here  in  the  year  184G,  one  would  suppose  that 
it  existed  most  strongly  at  Oxford.  And  so  it  did,  no 
doubt,  particularly  among  theologians.  With  them 
German  meant  much  the  same  as  unorthodox,  and 
unorthodox  was  enough  at  that  time  to  taboo  a  man 
at  Oxford.  In  one  of  the  sermons  preached  in  these 
early  days  at  St.  Mary's,  German  theologians  such 


Introductory  21 

as  Strauss  and  Neander  (sic)  were  spoken  of  as  fit 
only  to  be  drowned  in  the  German  Ocean,  before 
they  reached  the  shores  of  England.  I  do  not  add 
what  followed :  the  story  is  too  well  known.  I  was 
chiefly  amused  by  the  juxtaposition  of  Strauss  and 
Neander,  whose  most  orthodox  lectures  on  the  his- 
tory of  the  Christian  Church  I  had  attended  at  Ber- 
lin. Neander  was  certainly  to  us  at  Berlin  thq  very 
pattern  of  orthodoxy,  and  people  wondered  at  my 
attending  his  lectures.  But  they  were  good  and 
honest  lectures.  He  was  quite  a  character,  and  I 
feel  tempted  to  go  a  little  out  of  my  way  in  speak- 
ing of  him.  By  birth  a  Jew,  he  became  one  of  the 
most  learned  Christian  divines.  Ever  so  many  sto- 
ries were  told  of  him,  some  true,  some  no  doubt  in- 
vented. I  saw  him  often  walking  to  and  from  the 
University  to  give  his  lectures  in  a  large  fur  coat, 
with  high  black  polished  boots  beneath,  but  showing 
occasionally  as  he  walked  along.  It  was  told  that 
he  once  sent  for  a  doctor  because  he  was  lame.  The 
doctor  on  examining  his  feet,  saw  that  one  boot  was 
covered  with  mud,  while  the  other  was  perfectly 
clean.  The  Professor  had  walked  with  one  foot  on 
the  pavement,  with  the  other  in  the  gutter,  and  was 
far  too  much  absorbed  in  his  ideas  to  discover  the 
true  cause  of  his  discomfort.  He  lived  with  his 
sister,  who  took  complete  care  of  him  and  saw  to  his 
wardrobe  also.  She  knew  that  he  wore  one  pair  of 
trousers,  and  that  on  a  certain  day  in  the  year  the 
tailor  brought  him  a  new  pair.     Great  was  her 


22  My  Autobiography 

amazement  when  one  day,  after  her  brother  had 
gone  to  the  University,  she  discovered  his  pair  of 
trousers  lying  on  a  chair  near  his  bed.  She  at  once 
sent  a  servant  to  the  Professor's  lecture-room  to  in- 
quire whether  he  had  his  trousers  on.  The  hilarity 
of  his  class  may  be  imagined.  The  fact  was  it  was 
the  very  day  on  which  the  tailor  was  in  the  habit  of 
bringing  the  new  pair  of  trousers,  which  the  Pro- 
fessor had  put  on,  leaving  his  usual  garment  behind. 

Many  more  stories  of  his  absent-mindedness  were 
en  vogue  about  Dr.  Neander,  but  that  this  man,  a 
pillar  of  strength  to  the  orthodox  in  Germany,  who 
was  looked  up  to  as  an  infallible  Pope,  should  have 
his  name  coupled  with  that  of  Strauss  certainly  gave 
one  a  little  shock.  Yet  it  was  at  Oxford  that  I 
pitched  my  tent,  chiefly  in  order  to  superintend  the 
printing  of  my  Pig-veda  at  the  University  Press 
there,  and  never  dreaming  that  a  fellowship,  still 
less  a  professorship  in  that  ancient  Tory  University, 
would  ever  be  offered  to  me. 

Por  me  to  go  to  Oxford  to  get  a  fellowship  or 
professorship  would  have  seemed  about  as  absurd 
as  going  to  Pome  to  become  a  Cardinal  or  a  Pope; 
and  yet  in  time  I  was  chosen  a  Fellow  of  All  Souls, 
and  the  first  married  Fellow  of  the  College,  and 
even  a  professorship  was  offered  to  me  when  I  least 
expected  it.  The  fact  is,  I  never  thought  of  either, 
and  no  one  was  more  surprised  than  myself  when 
I  was  asked  to  act  as  deputy,  and  then  as  full  Tay- 
lorian  Professor;  no  one  could  have  mistrusted  his 


Introductory  23 

eyes  more  than  I  did,  when  one  of  the  Fellows  of 
All  Soul's  informed  me  by  letter  that  it  was  the  in- 
tention of  the  College  to  elect  me  one  of  its  fellows. 
My  ambition  had  never  soared  so  high.  I  was  think- 
ing of  returning  to  Leipzig  as  a  Privat-docent,  to 
rise  afterwards  to  an  extraordinary  and,  if  all  went 
well,  to  an  ordinary  professorship. 

But  after  these  two  appointments  at  Oxford  had 
secured  to  me  what  I  thought  a  fair  social  and  finan- 
cial position  in  England,  I  did  not  feel  justified  in  at- 
tempting to  begin  life  again  in  Germany.  I  had  not 
asked  for  a  professorship  or  fellowship.  They  were 
offered  me,  and  my  ambition  never  went  beyond 
securing  what  was  necessary  for  my  independence. 
In  Germany  I  was  supposed  to  have  become  quite 
wealthy;  in  England  people  knew  how  small  my 
income  really  was,  and  wondered  how  I  managed 
to  live  on  it.  They  did  not  suppose  that  I  had 
chiefly  to  depend  on  my  pen  in  order  to  live  as  a 
professor  is  expected  to  live  at  Oxford.  I  could 
not  see  anything  anomalous  in  a  Germian  holding  a 
professorship  in  England.  There  were  several  cases 
of  the  same  kind  in  Germany.  Lassen  (1800- 
1876),  our  great  Sanskrit  professor  at  Bonn,  was 
a  Norwegian  by  birth,  and  no  one  ever  thought  of 
his  nationality.  What  had  that  to  do  with  his 
knowledge  of  Sanskrit?  Nor  was  I  ever  treated  as 
an  alien  or  as  intruder  at  Oxford,  at  least  not  at 
that  early  time.  As  to  myself,  I  had  now  obtained 
what  seemed  to  me  a  small  but  sufficient  income 


24  My  Autobiography 

with  perfect  independence.  The  quiet  life  of  a 
quiet  student  had  been  from  my  earhest  days  my 
ideal  in  life.  Even  at  school  at  Dessau,  when  we 
boys  talked  of  what  we  hoped  to  be,  I  remember 
how  my  ideal  was  that  of  a  monk,  undisturbed  in 
his  monastery,  surrounded  by  books  and  by  a  few 
friends.  The  idea  that  I  should  ever  rise  to  be  a 
professor  in  a  university,  or  that  any  career  like  that 
of  my  father,  grandfather,  and  other  members  of 
my  family  would  ever  be  open  to  me,  never  entered 
my  mind  then.  It  seemed  to  me  almost  disloyal 
to  think  of  ever  taking  their  places.  Even  when  I 
saw  that  there  were  no  longer  any  Protestant  monks, 
no  Benedictines,  the  place  of  an  assistant  in  a  large 
library,  sitting  in  a  quiet  corner,  was  my  highest 
ambition. 

I  do  not  see  why  it  should  have  been  so,  for  all 
my  relations  and  friends  occupied  high  places  in  the 
public  service,  but  as  I  had  no  father  to  open  my 
eyes,  and  to  stimulate  my  ambition — he  having  died 
before  I  was  four  years  old — my  ideas  of  life  and 
its  possibilities  were  evidently  taken  from  my  young 
widowed  mother,  whose  one  desire  was  to  be  left 
alone,  much  as  the  world  tempted  her,  then  not  yet 
thirty  years  old,  to  give  up  her  mourning  and  to 
return  to  society.  Thus  it  soon  became  my  own 
philosophy  of  life,  to  be  left  alone,  free  to  go  my 
own  way,  or  like  Diogenes,  to  live  in  my  own  tub. 
Here  we  see  what  I  call  the  influence  of  circum- 
stances, of  surroundings,  or  as  others  call  it,  of  en- 


Introductory  2C 

vironment.  This,  however,  is  very  different  from 
atavism,  as  we  shall  see  presently.  Atavism  also 
has  been  called  a  kind  of  environment,  attacking  us 
and  influencing  us  from  the  past,  and  as  it  were, 
from  behind,  from  the  North  in  fact  instead  of  the 
South,  the  East,  and  the  West,  and  from  all  the 
points  of  the  compass. 

But  atavism  means  really  a  very  different  thing, 
if  indeed  it  means  anything  at  all. 

I  must  ease  my  conscience  once  for  all  on  this 
point,  and  say  what  I  feel  about  atavism  and  en- 
vironment. Environment  in  the  shape  of  friends, 
of  locality,  and  other  material  circumstances,  has 
certainly  influenced  my  life  very  much,  and  I  could 
never  see  why  such  a  hybrid  word  as  environment 
should  be  used  instead  of  surroundings  or  circum- 
stances. Creatures  of  circumstances  would  be  far 
better  understood  than  creatures  of  environment; 
but  environment,  I  suppose,  would  sound  more 
scientific.  Atavism  also  is  a  new  word,  instead  of 
family  likeness,  but  unless  carefully  defined,  the 
word  is  very  apt  to  mislead  us. 

When  it  is  said  ^  that  children  often  resemble 
their  grandfathers  or  grandmothers  more  than  their 
immediate  parents,  and  that  this  propensity  is 
termed  atavism,  this  does  not  seem  quite  correct 
even  etymologically,  for  atavus  in  Latin  did  not 
mean  father  or  grandfather,  but  at  first  great-great- 

'  Oxford  Bidionary,  s.  v. ;  J.  Kennie,  Science  of  Gardening, 
p.  113. 


26  My  Autobiography 

great-grandfather,  and  then  only  ancestors;  and 
what  should  be  made  quite  clear  is  that  this  mys- 
terious atavism  should  not  be  used  by  careful  speak- 
ers, to  express  the  supposed  influence  of  parents 
or  even  grandparents,  but  that  of  more  distant  an- 
cestors only,  and  possibly  of  a  whole  family. 

Many  biographers,  such  is  the  fashion  now,  be- 
gin their  works  with  a  long  account  not  only  of 
father  and  mother,  but  of  grandparents  and  of  ever 
so  many  ancestors,  in  order  to  show  how  these  de- 
termined the  outward  and  inward  character  of  the 
man  whose  life  has  to  be  written.  Who  would  deny 
that  there  is  some  truth,  or  at  least  some  plausibility, 
in  atavism,  though  no  one  has  as  yet  succeeded  in 
giving  an  intelligible  account  of  it?  It  is  supposed 
to  affect  the  moral  as  well  as  the  physical  peculiari- 
ties of  the  offspring,  and  that  here,  too,  physical  and 
moral  qualities  often  go  together  cannot  be  denied. 
A  blind  person,  for  instance,  is  generally  cautious, 
but  happy  and  quite  at  his  ease  in  large  societies. 
A  deaf  person  is  often  suspicious  and  unhappy  in 
society.  In  inheriting  blindness,  therefore,  a  man 
could  well  be  said  to  have  inherited  cautiousness; 
in  inheriting  deafness,  suspiciousness  would  seem  to 
have  come  to  him  by  inheritance. 

But  is  blindness  really  inherited?  Is  the  son  of  a 
father  who  has  lost  his  eyesight  blind,  and  neces- 
sarily blind?  We  must  distinguish  between  ata- 
vistic and  parental  influences.  Parental  influences 
would  mean  the  influence  of  qualities  acquired  by 


Introductory  27 

the  parents,  and  directly  bequeathed  to  their  off- 
spring; atavistic  influences  would  refer  to  qualities 
inherited  and  transmitted,  it  may  be,  through  sev- 
eral generations,  and  engrained  in  a  whole  family. 
In  keeping  these  two  classes  separate,  we  should 
only  be  following  Weismann's  example,  who  denies 
altogether  that  acquired  qualities  are  ever  heritable. 
His  examples  are  most  interesting  and  most  im- 
portant, and  many  Darwinians  have  had  to  accept 
his  amendment.  Besides,  we  should  always  consider 
whether  certain  peculiarities  are  constant  in  a  fam- 
ily or  inconstant.  If  a  father  is  a  drunkard,  surely 
it  does  not  follow  that  his  sons  must  be  drunkards. 
Neither  does  it  follow  that  all  the  children  must 
be  sober  if  the  parents  are  sober.  Of  course,  in 
ordinary  conversation  both  parental  and  ancestral 
influences  seem  clear  enough.  But  if  a  child  is  said 
to  favour  his  mother,  because  like  her  he  has  blue 
eyes  and  fair  hair,  what  becomes  of  the  heritage 
from  the  father  who  may  have  brown  eyes  and  dark 
hair?  Whatever  may  happen  to  the  children,  there 
is  always  an  excuse,  only  an  excuse  is  not  an  ex- 
planation. If  the  daughter  of  a  beautiful  woman 
grows  up  very  plain,  the  Frenchman  was  no  doubt 
right  when  he  remarked,  C'eiait  alors  le  pere  qui 
netait  pas  hien,  and  if  the  son  of  a  teetotaller 
should  later  in  life  become  a  drunkard,  the  conclu- 
sion would  be  even  worse.  In  fact,  this  kind  of 
atavistic  or  parental  influence  is  a  very  pleasant 
subject  for  gossips,  but  from  a  scientific  point  of 


28  My  Autobiography 

view,  it  is  perfectly  futile.  If  it  is  not  the  father, 
it  is  the  mother;  if  it  is  not  the  grandmother,  it  is 
the  grandfather;  in  fact,  family  influences  can  al- 
ways be  traced  to  some  source  or  other,  if  the  whole 
pedigree  may  be  dug  up  and  ransacked.  But  for 
that  very  reason  they  are  of  no  scientific  value  what- 
ever. They  can  neither  be  accounted  for,  nor  can 
they  be  used  to  account  for  anything  themselves. 
Even  of  twins,  though  very  like  each  other  in  many 
respects,  one  may  be  phlegmatic,  the  other  passion- 
ate. Some  scientists,  such  as  Weismann  and  others, 
have  therefore  denied,  and  I  believe  rightly,  that 
any  acquired  characters,  whether  physical  or  men- 
tal, can  ever  be  inherited  by  children  from  their 
parents.  Whatever  similarity  there  is,  and  there  is 
plenty,  is  traced  back  by  him  to  what  he  calls  the 
germ-plasm,  working  on  continuously  in  spite  of  all 
indi\ndual  changes.  If  that  germ-plasm  is  liable  to 
certain  peculiar  modifications  in  the  father  or  grand- 
father, it  is  liable  to  the  same  or  similar  modifica- 
tions in  the  offspring,  that  is,  if  the  father  could  be- 
come a  drunkard,  so  could  the  son,  only  we  must  not 
think  that  the  post  hoc  is  here  the  same  as  the 
propter  hoc.  If  we  compare  the  germ-plasm  to  the 
molecules  constituting  the  stem  or  branches  of  a 
vine,  its  grapes  and  leaves  in  their  similarity  and 
their  variety  would  be  comparable  to  the  individu- 
als belonging  to  the  same  family,  and  springing 
from  the  same  family  tree.  But  then  the  grape  we 
see  would  not  be  what  the  grape  of  last  year,  or 


Introductory  29 

the  grape  immediately  preceding  it  on  the  same 
branch,  had  made  it,  though  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  antecedent  possibilities  of  the  new  grape 
were  the  same  as  those  of  the  last.  If  one  grape  is 
blue,  the  next  will  be  blue  too,  but  no  one  would  say 
that  it  was  blue  because  the  last  grape  was  blue. 
The  real  cause  would  be  that  the  molecules  of  the 
protoplasm  have  been  so  affected  by  long  continued 
generation,  that  some  of  the  peculiar  qualities  of 
the  vine  have  become  constant. 

The  child  of  a  negro  must  always  be  a  negro; 
his  peculiarities  are  constant,  though  it  may  be  quite 
true  that  the  negro  and  other  races  are  not  different 
species,  but  only  varieties  rendered  constant  by  im- 
mense periods  of  time.  What  the  cause  of  these 
constant  and  inconstant  peculiarities  may  be,  not 
even  "Weismann  has  yet  been  able  to  explain  satis- 
factorily. 

The  deafness  of  my  mother  and  the  prevalence  of 
the  misfortune  in  numerous  members  of  her  family 
acted  on  me  as  a  kind  of  external  influence,  as  some- 
thing belonging  to  the  environment  of  my  life;  it 
never  frightened  me  as  an  atavistic  evil.  It  justi- 
fied me  in  being  cautious  and  in  being  prepared  for 
the  worst,  and  so  far  it  may  be  said  to  have  helped 
in  shaping  or  narrowing  the  course  of  my  life.  Fort- 
unately, however,  this  tendency  to  deafness  seems 
now  to  have  exhausted  itself.  In  my  own  genera- 
tion there  is  one  case  only,  and  the  next  two  genera- 
tions, children  and  grandchildren  of  mine,  show  no 


3©  My  Autobiography 

signs  of  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  my  son  was  con- 
gratulated when  entering  the  diplomatic  service,  on 
being  the  son  of  his  father,  it  is  clear  that  the  dif- 
ference between  inherited  and  acquired  qualities, 
so  strongly  insisted  on  by  "VVeismann,  had  not  been 
fully  appreciated  by  his  friends.  Besides,  my  own 
power  of  speaking  foreign  languages  has  always 
been  very  limited,  and  I  have  many  times  declined 
the  compliment  of  being  a  second  Mezzofanti.^  I 
worked  at  languages  as  a  musician  studies  the  nat- 
ure and  capacities  of  musical  instruments,  though 
without  attempting  to  perform  on  every  one  of 
them.  There  was  no  time  left  for  acquiring  a  prac- 
tical familiarity  with  languages,  if  I  wanted  to  carry 
on  my  researches  into  the  origin,  the  nature  and 
history  of  language.  My  own  study  of  languages 
could  therefore  have  been  of  very  little  use  to  me, 
nor  did  my  son  himself  perceive  such  an  advantage 
in  learning  to  converse  in  French,  Spanish,  Turkish, 
&c.  The  facts  were  wrong,  and  the  theory  of 
atavism  perfectly  unreasonable  as  applied  to  such 
a  case. 

If  the  theory  of  atavism  were  stretched  so  far,  it 
would  soon  do  away  with  free  will  altogether.  That 
heredity  has  something  to  do  with  our  moral  char- 
acter, no  one  would  deny  who  knows  the  influence 
of  our  national,  nay  even  of  racial  character.  We 
are  Aryan  by  heredity;  we  might  be  Negroes  or 
Chinese,  and  share  in  their  tendencies.     Animak 

'  Science  of  Language^  vol.  i.  p.  24  (1861). 


Introductory  31 

also  have  their  instincts.  Only  while  animals,  like 
serpents  for  instance,  would  never  hesitate  to  follow 
their  innate  propensity,  man,  when  he  feels  the 
power  of  what  we  may  call  inherited  human  instinct, 
feels  also  that  he  can  fight  against  it,  and  preserve 
his  freedom,  even  while  wearing  the  chains  of  his 
slavery.  This  may  have  removed  some  of  Dr.  Wen- 
dell Holmes'  scruples  in  writing  his  powerful  story, 
Elsie  Venner,  and  may  likewise  quiet  the  fears  of 
his  many  critics. 

I  believe  that  language  also — our  own  inherited 
language — exercises  the  most  powerful  influence  on 
our  reason  and  our  will,  far  more  powerful  than  we 
are  aware  of. 

A  Greek  speaking  Greek  and  a  Roman  speaking 
Latin  would  certainly  have  been  very  different 
beings  from  the  Romance  and  French  descendants 
of  a  Horace  or  a  Cicero,  and  this  simply  on  account 
of  the  language  which  they  had  to  speak,  whether 
Greek,  Latin,  French,  or  Spanish.  "VVe  cannot  tell 
whether  the  original  differentiation  of  language, 
symbolized  by  the  story  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  took 
place  before  or  after  the  racial  differentiation  of 
men.  Anyhow  it  must  have  taken  place  in  quite 
primordial  times.  Without  speaking  positively  on 
this  point,  I  certainly  hold  as  strongly  as  ever  that 
language  makes  the  man,  and  that  therefore  for 
classificatory  purposes  also  language  is  far  more  use- 
ful than  colour  of  skin,  hair,  cranial  or  gnathic  pe- 
culiarities.   Whether  it  be  true  that  with  every  new 


32  My  Autobiography 

language  we  speak  we  become  new  men,  certain  it 
is  that  language  prepares  for  us  channels  in  which 
our  thoughts  have  to  run,  unless  they  are  so  power- 
ful as  to  break  all  dams  and  dykes,  and  to  dig  for 
themselves  new  beds. 

For  a  long  time  people  would  not  see  that  lan- 
guages can  be  classified;  and  as  languages  always 
presuppose  speakers  of  language,  these  speakers 
also  can  be  classified  accordingly.  It  is  quite  true 
that  some  of  these  Aryan  speakers  may  in  some 
cases  have  Negro  blood  and  Negro  features,  as  when 
a  Negro  becomes  an  English  bishop.  Conquered 
tribes  also  may  in  time  have  learnt  to  speak  the  lan- 
guage of  their  conquerors,  but  this  too  is  excep- 
tional, and  if  we  call  them  Aryas,  we  do  not  commit 
ourselves  to  any  opinion  as  to  their  blood,  their 
bones,  or  their  hair.  These  will  never  submit  to 
the  same  classification  as  their  speech,  and  why 
should  they?  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that 
wherever  a  mixture  of  language  takes  place,  mixed 
marriages  also  would  most  likely  take  place  at  the 
same  time.  But  whatever  confusion  may  have 
arisen  in  later  times  in  language  and  in  blood,  no 
language  could  have  arisen  without  speakers,  and 
we  mean  by  Aryas  no  more  than  speakers  of  Aryan 
languages,  whatever  their  skulls  or  their  hair  may 
have  been.  An  Octoroon,  and  even  a  Quadroon, 
may  have  blonde  waving  hair,  but  if  he  speaks 
English  he  would  be  classified  as  Aryan,  if  Berber 
as  a  Negro.    But  who  is  injured  by  such  a  classifi- 


Introductory  33 

cation?  Let  blood  and  skulls  and  liair  and  jaws  be 
classified  by  all  means,  but  let  us  speak  no  longer 
of  Aryan  skulls  or  Semitic  blood.  We  might  as  well 
speak  of  a  progTiatbic  language. 

While  fully  admitting,  therefore,  the  influence 
which  family,  nationality,  race,  and  language  exer- 
cise on  us,  it  should  be  clearly  perceived  that  habits 
acquired  by  our  parents  are  not  heritable,  that  the 
sons  of  drunkards  need  not  be  drunkards,  as  little 
as  the  sons  of  sober  people  must  be  sober.  But 
though  biographers  may  agree  to  this  in  general 
they  seem  inclined  to  hold  out  very  strongly  for 
what  are  called  special  talents  in  certain  families,. 
This  subject  is  decidedly  amusing,  but  it  admits  of 
no  scientific  treatment,  as  far  as  I  can  see. 

The  grandfather  of  Felix  Mendelssohn  Bar- 
tholdy  for  instance,  though  not  a  composer,  was  evi- 
dently a  man  of  genius,  a  philosopher  of  consider- 
able intellectual  capacity  and  moral  strength.  The 
father  of  the  composer  was  a  rich  banker  at  Berlin, 
and  he  used  to  say:  "  When  I  was  young  I  was  the 
son  of  the  great  Mendelssohn,  now  that  I  am  old, 
I  am  the  father  of  the  great  Mendelssohn;  then  what 
am  I?  "  Even  a  poor  man  to  become  a  rich  banker 
must  be  a  kind  of  genius,  and  so  far  the  son  may 
be  said  to  have  come  of  a  good  stock.  But  the  great 
musical  talent  that  was  developed  in  the  third  gen- 
eration both  in  Felix  and  his  sisters,  failed  entirely 
in  his  brother,  who,  to  save  his  life,  could  never 
have  sung  "  God  save  the  Queen."     In  the  little 


34  My  Autobiography 

theatrical  performances  of  the  whole  family  for 
which  Felix  composed  the  music,  and  his  sister 
Fanny  (Hensel)  some  of  the  songs,  the  unmusical 
brother — was  it  not  Paul? — had  generally  to  be 
pro\aded  with  some  such  part  as  that  of  a  night 
watchman,  and  he  managed  to  get  through  his  song 
with  as  much  credit  as  the  Naclitwdchter  in  the 
little  town  of  Germany,  where  he  sang  or  repeated, 
as  I  well  remember,  in  his  cracked  voice : 

"  H5rt,  ihr  Herren,  und  lasst  eueh  sagen, 
Die  Glock'  hat  zwOlf  geschlagen  ; 
Wahi'et  das  Feuer  und  auch  das  Licht, 
Dass  Keineui  kein  Schade  geschicht." 

"  Listen,  gents,  and  let  me  tell. 
The  clock  struck  twelve  by  its  last  knell ; 
Watch  o'er  the  fire  and  o'er  the  light 
That  no  one  suffer  any  plight." 

I  have  known  in  my  life  many  musicians  and  their 
families,  but  I  remember  very  few  instances  indeed, 
where  the  son  of  a  distinguished  musician  was  a 
great  musician  himself.  If  the  children  take  to 
music  at  all  they  may  become  very  fair  musicians, 
but  never  anything  extraordinary.  The  Bach  fam- 
ily may  be  quoted  against  me,  but  music,  before 
Sebastian  Bach,  was  almost  like  a  profession,  and 
could  be  learned  like  any  other  handicraft. 

Xor  are  the  cases  of  painters  being  the  sons  of 
great  painters,  or  of  poets  being  the  sons  of  great 
poets,  more  numerous.     It  seems  almost  as  if  the 


Introductory  3^ 

artistic  talent  was  exliausted  by  one  generation  or 
one  individual,  so  that  we  often  see  the  sons  of 
great  men  by  no  means  great,  and  if  they  do  any- 
tliing  in  the  same  line  as  their  fathers,  we  must  re- 
member that  there  was  much  to  induce  them  to 
follow  in  their  steps  without  admitting  any  atavistic 
influences. 

For  the  present,  I  can  only  repeat  the  conclusion 
I  arrived  at  after  weighing  all  the  arguments  of 
my  friends  and  critics,  namely,  to  continue  my 
Recollections  much  as  I  began  them,  to  try  to  ex- 
plain what  made  me  what  I  am,  to  describe,  in  fact, 
my  environment ;  though  as  my  years  advance,  and 
my  labours  and  plans  grow  wider  and  wider,  I  shall, 
no  doubt,  have  to  say  a  great  deal  more  about  my- 
self than  in  the  volumes  of  Auld  Lang  Syne.  In 
fact,  my  Recollections  will  become  more  and  more 
of  an  autobiography,  and  the  I  and  the  Autos  will 
appear  more  frequently  than  I  could  have  wished. 

In  an  autobiography  the  painter  is  of  course  sup- 
posed to  be  the  same  as  the  sitter,  but  quite  apart 
from  the  motaphysical  difficulties  of  such  a  sup- 
position, there  is  the  physical  difficulty  when  the 
writer  is  an  old  man,  and  the  model  is  a  young  boy. 
Is  the  old  man  likely  to  be  a  fair  judge  of  the  young 
man,  whether  it  be  himself  or  some  one  else?  As 
a  rule,  old  men  are  very  indulgent,  while  young 
men  are  apt  to  be  stem  and  strict  in  their  judg- 
ments. The  very  fact  that  they  often  invent  ex- 
cuses for  themselves  shows  that  they  feel  that  they 


36  My  Autobiography 

want  excuses.  The  words  of  the  Preacher,  vii.  16: 
"  Be  not  righteous  over  much ;  neither  make  thy- 
self over  wise:  why  shouldest  thou  destroy  thyself? 
Be  not  over  much  wicked,  neither  be  thou  foolish: 
why  shouldest  thou  die  before  thy  time?  "  are  evi- 
dently the  words  of  an  old  man  when  judging  of 
himself  or  of  others.  A  young  man  would  have 
spoken  differently.  He  would  have  made  no  allow- 
ance; for  anything  like  compassion  for  an  erring 
friend  is  as  yet  unknown  to  him.  In  an  autobi- 
ography written  by  an  old  man  there  is  therefore 
a  double  danger,  first  the  indulgence  of  the  old  man, 
and  secondly  the  kindly  feeling  of  the  writer  tow- 
ards the  object  of  his  remarks. 

All  these  difficulties  stand  before  me  like  a  moun- 
tain wall.  And  it  seems  better  to  confess  at  once 
that  an  old  man  writing  his  own  life  can  never  be 
quite  just,  however  honest  he  tries  to  be.  He  may 
be  too  indulgent,  but  he  may  also  be  too  strict  and 
stern.  To  say,  for  instance,  of  a  man  that  he  has 
not  kept  his  promise,  would  be  a  very  serious  charge 
if  brought  against  anybody  else.  Yet  my  oldest 
friend  in  the  world  knows  how  many  times  he  has 
made  a  promise  to  himself,  and  has  not  only  not 
kept  it  but  has  actually  found  excuses  why  he  did 
not  keep  it.  The  more  sensitive  our  conscience  be- 
comes, the  more  blameworthy  many  an  act  of  our 
life  seems  to  be,  and  what  to  an  ordinary  conscience 
is  no  fault  at  all,  becomes  almost  a  sin  under  a 
fiercer  light. 


Introductory  37 

This  changes  the  moral  atmosphere  of  youth 
when  painted  by  an  old  man,  but  the  physical 
atmosphere  also  assumes  necessarily  a  different  hue. 
Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  distance  will  always  lend 
enchantment  to  the  view.  If  the  azure  hue  is  in- 
separable from  distant  mountains  and  from  the  dis- 
tant sky,  we  need  not  wonder  that  it  veils  the  dis- 
tant paradise  of  youth.  A  man  who  keeps  a  diary 
from  his  earliest  years,  and  who  as  an  old  man  simply 
copies  from  its  yellow  pages,  may  give  us  a  very 
accurate  black  and  white  image  of  what  he  saw  as 
a  boy,  but  as  in  old  faded  photographs,  the  life  and 
light  are  gone  out  of  them,  while  unassisted  mem- 
ory may  often  preserve  tints  of  their  former  reality. 
There  is  life  and  light  in  such  recollections,  but 
I  am  willing  to  admit  that  memory  can  be  very 
treacherous  also.  Thus  in  my  own  case  I  can  vouch 
that  whatever  I  relate  is  carefully  and  accurately 
transcribed  from  the  tablets  of  my  memory,  as  I 
see  them  now,  but  though  I  can  claim  truthfulness 
to  myself  and  to  my  memory,  I  cannot  pretend  to 
photographic  accuracy.  I  feel  indeed  for  the  his- 
torian who  uses  such  materials  unless  he  has  learnt 
to  make  allowance  for  the  dim  sight  of  even  the  most 
truthful  narrators. 

I  doubt  whether  any  historian  would  accept  a 
statement  made  thirty  years  after  the  event  without 
independent  confirmation.  I  could  not  give  the 
date  of  the  battle  of  Sadowa,  though  I  well  remem- 
ber reading  the  full  account  of  it  in  the  Times 


(^*j^  ^ 


38  My  Autobiography 

from  day  to  day.  I  can  of  course  get  at  the  date 
from  historical  books,  and  from  that  kind  of  arti- 
ficial memory  which  arises  by  itself  without  any 
memoria  technica.  There  is  a  favourite  German 
game  of  cards  called  Sixty-six,  and  it  was  reported 
that  when  the  French  in  1870  shouted  A  Berlin, 
the  then  Crown-Prince  who  had  won  the  battle  of 
Sadowa,  or  Koniggratz,  said:  "  Ah,  they  want  an- 
other game  of  Sixty-six!  "  that  is  they  want  a  bat- 
tle like  that  of  Sadowa.  In  this  way  I  shall  always 
remember  the  date  of  that  decisive  battle.  But  I 
could  not  give  the  date  of  the  Crimean  battles  nor 
a  trustworthy  account  of  the  successive  stages  of 
that  war.  I  doubt  whether  even  my  old  friend,  Sir 
William  H.  Kussell,  could  do  that  now  without  re- 
ferring to  his  letters  in  the  Times.  After  thirty 
years  no  one,  I  believe,  could  take  an  oath  to  the  ac- 
curacy of  any  statement  of  what  he  saw  or  heard 
so  many  years  ago. 

All  then  that  I  can  vouch  for  is  that  I  read  my 
memory  as  I  should  the  leaves  of  an  old  MS.  from 
which  many  letters,  nay,  whole  words  and  lines  have 
vanished,  and  where  I  am  often  driven  to  decipher 
and  to  guess,  as  in  a  palimpsest,  what  the  original 
uncial  writing  may  have  been.  I  am  the  first  to 
confess  that  there  may  be  flaws  in  my  memory, 
there  may  be  before  my  eyes  that  magic  azure  which 
surrounds  the  distant  past;  but  I  can  promise  that 
there  shall  be  no  invention,  no  Dichtung  instead  of 
Wahrheit,  but  always,  as  far  as  in  me  lies,  truth. 


Introductory  39 

I  know  quite  well  that  even  a  certain  dislocation  of 
facts  is  not  always  to  be  avoided  in  an  old  memory. 
I  know  it  from  sad  experience.  As  the  spires  of 
a  city — of  Oxford  for  instance — arrange  themselves 
differently  as  we  pass  the  old  place  on  the  railway, 
so  that  now  one  and  now  the  other  stands  in  the 
centre  and  seems  to  rise  above  the  heads  of  the  rest, 
so  it  is  with  our  friends  and  acquaintances.  Some 
who  seemed  giants  at  one  time  assume  smaller  pro- 
portions as  others  come  into  view  towering  above 
them.  The  whole  scenery  changes  from  year  to 
year.  Who  does  not  remember  the  trees  in  our 
garden  that  seemed  like  giants  in  our  childhood,  but 
when  we  see  them  again  in  our  old  age,  they  have 
shrunk,  and  not  from  old  age  only  ? 

And  must  I  make  one  more  confession?  It  is 
well  known  that  George  the  Fourth  described  the 
battle  of  Waterloo  so  often  that  at  last  he  persuaded 
himself  that  he  had  been  present,  in  fact  that  he 
had  won  that  battle.  I  also  remember  Dr.  Routh, 
the  venerable  president  of  Magdalen  College,  who 
died  in  his  hundredth  vear,  and  who  had  so  often 
repeated  all  the  circumstances  of  the  execution  of 
Charles  I,  that  when  Macaulay  expressed  a  wish  to 
see  him,  he  declined  "  because  that  young  man  has 
given  quite  a  wrong  account  of  the  last  moments  of 
the  king,"  which  he  then  proceeded  to  relate,  as  if 
he  had  been  an  eye-witness  throughout. 

Are  we  not  liable  to  the  same  hallucination, 
though,  let  us  hope,  in  a  more  mitigated  form? 


40  My  Autobiography- 

Have  we  never  told  a  story  as  if  it  were  our  own, 
not  from  any  wish  to  deceive,  but  simply  because  it 
seemed  shorter  and  easier  to  do  so  than  to  explain 
step  by  step  how  it  reached  us?  And  after  doing 
that  once  or  twice,  is  there  not  great  danger  of  our 
being  surprised  at  somebody  else  claiming  the  story 
as  his  own,  or  actually  maintaining  that  it  was  he 
who  told  it  to  us  ? 

Not  very  long  ago  I  remember  reading  in  a  jour- 
nal a  story  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  His  servant 
had  been  sent  before  to  order  dinner  for  him  at  an 
out-of-the-way  hotel,  and  in  order  to  impress  the 
landlord  with  the  dignity  of  his  coming  guest,  he 
had  recited  a  number  of  the  Duke's  titles,  which 
were  very  numerous.  The  landlord,  thinking  that 
the  Duke  of  Vittoria,  the  Prince  of  Waterloo,  the 
Marquis  of  Torres  Vedras,  and  all  the  rest,  were 
friends  invited  to  dine  with  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton, ordered  accordingly  a  very  sumptuous  banquet 
to  the  great  dismay  of  the  real  Duke.  This  may 
or  may  not  be  a  very  old  and  a  very  true  story; 
all  I  know  is  that  much  the  same  thing  was  told  at 
Oxford  of  Dr.  Bull,  who  was  Canon  of  Christ 
Church,  Canon  of  Exeter,  Prebendary  of  York, 
Vicar  of  Staverton,  and  lastly,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bull 
himself.  Dinner  was  provided  for  each  of  these 
persons,  and  we  are  told  that  the  reverend  pluralist 
had  to  eat  all  the  dishes  on  the  table  and  pay  for 
them.  This  also  may  have  been  no  more  than  one 
of  the  many  "  Common-roomers  "  which  abounded 


Introductory  41 

in  Oxford  when  Common  Rooms  were  more  fre- 
quented than  they  are  now.  But  what  I  happen  to 
know  as  a  fact  is  that  Dean  Stanley  received  no  less 
than  four  invitations  to  a  ball  at  Blenheim,  ad- 
dressed A.  P.  Stanley,  Esq.,  the  Rev.  A.  P.  Stanley, 
Canon  Stanley,  Professor  Stanley,  all  evidently 
copied  from  some  books  of  reference. 

I  may  perhaps  claim  one  advantage  in  trying  to 
describe  what  happened  to  myself  in  my  passage 
through  life.  From  the  earliest  days  that  I  can 
recollect,  I  felt  myself  as  a  twofold  being — as  a 
subject  and  an  object,  as  a  spectator  and  as  an  actor. 
I  suppose  we  all  talk  to  ourselves,  and  say  to  our 
better  and  worse  selves,  O  thou  fool !  or.  Well  done, 
my  boy !  Well  this  inward  conversation  began  with 
me  at  a  very  early  time,  and  left  the  impression 
that  I  was  the  coachman,  but  at  the  same  time  the 
horse  too  which  he  drove  and  sometimes  whipped 
very  cruelly.  And  this  phase  of  thought,  or  rather 
this  state  of  feeling,  seems  soon  to  have  led  me  on 
to  another  view  which  likewise  dates  from  a  very 
early  time,  though  it  afterwards  vanished.  As  a 
little  boy,  when  I  could  not  have  the  same  toys 
which  other  boys  possessed,  I  could  fully  enjoy  what 
they  enjoyed,  as  if  they  had  been  my  own.  There 
is  a  German  phrase,  "  Ich  freue  mich  in  deiner 
Seele,"  which  exactly  expressed  what  I  often  felt. 
It  was  not  the  result  of  teaching,  still  less  of  reason- 
ing— it  was  a  sentiment  given  me  and  which  cer- 
tainty did  not  leave  me  till  much  later  in  life,  when 


42  My  Autobiography 

competition,  rivalry,  jealousy,  and  envy  seemed  to 
accentuate  my  own  I  as  against  all  other  I's  or 
Thou's.  I  suppose  we  all  remember  how  the  sight 
of  a  wound  of  a  fellow  creature,  nay  even  of  a  dog, 
gives  us  a  sharp  twitch  in  the  same  part  of  our  own 
body.  That  bodily  sympathy  has  never  left  me,  I 
suffer  from  it  even  now  as  I  did  seventy  years  ago. 
And  is  there  anybody  who  has  not  felt  his  eyes  mois- 
ten at  the  sudden  happiness  of  his  friends?  All  this 
seems  to  me  to  account,  to  a  certain  extent  at  least, 
for  that  feeling  of  identity  with  so-called  strangers, 
which  came  to  me  from  my  earliest  days,  and  has 
returned  again  with  renewed  strength  in  my  old  age. 
The  "  know  thyself,"  ascribed  to  Chilon  and  other 
sages  of  ancient  Greece,  gains  a  deeper  meaning 
with  every  year,  till  at  last  the  I  which  we  looked 
upon  as  the  most  certain  and  undoubted  fact,  van- 
ishes from  our  grasp  to  become  the  Self,  free  from 
the  various  accidents  and  limitations  which  make 
up  the  I,  and  therefore  one  with  the  Self  that  un- 
derlies all  individual  and  therefore  vanishing  I's. 
What  that  common  Self  may  be  is  a  question  to  be 
reserved  for  later  times,  though  I  may  say  at  once 
that  the  only  true  answer  given  to  it  seems  to  me 
that  of  the  Upanishads  and  the  Vedanta  philosophy. 
Only  we  must  take  care  not  to  mistake  the  moral 
Self,  that  finds  fault  with  the  active  Self,  for  the 
Highest  Self  that  knows  no  longer  of  good  or  evil 
deeds. 

Long  before  I  had  worked  and  thought  out  this 


Introductory  4^ 

problem  as  the  fundamental  truth  of  all  philosophy, 
it  presented  itself  to  me  as  if  by  intuition,  long  be- 
fore I  could  have  fathomed  it  in  its  metaphysical 
meaning.  I  had  just  heard  of  the  death  of  a  dear 
little  child,  and  was  standing  in  our  garden,  looking 
at  a  rose-bush,  covered  in  summer  with  hundreds 
of  rose-buds  and  rose-flowers.  While  I  was  looking 
I  broke  off  one  small  withered  bud  from  the  midst 
of  a  large  cluster  of  roses,  and  after  I  had  done  so 
a  question  came  to  me,  and  I  said  to  myself.  What 
has  happened?  Is  it  only  that  one  small  bud  is  dead 
and  gone,  or  have  not  all  the  other  roses  been 
touched  by  the  breath  of  death  that  fell  on  it? 
Have  they  not  all  suffered  from  the  death  of  their 
sister,  for  they  all  spring  from  the  same  stem,  they 
all  have  their  life  from  the  same  source?  And  if 
one  rose  suffers,  must  not  all  the  others  suffer  with 
it?  Then  all  the  buds  and  flowers  of  the  cluster 
seemed  to  me  to  become  one,  as  it  were  a  family 
of  roses,  and  each  single  bud  seemed  but  the  repe- 
tition of  the  same  thing,  the  manifestation  of  the 
same  thought,  namely  the  thought  of  the  rose.  But 
my  eyes  were  carried  still  further,  and  the  stem 
from  which  the  bunch  of  roses  sprang  was  lost  with 
other  stems  in  a  branch,  and  it  was  that  branch  on 
which  all  the  roses  of  the  branchlets  and  stems  de- 
pended, and  without  which  they  could  not  flower 
or  exist.  The  single  roses  thus  became  identified 
with  the  branch  from  which  they  had  sprung,  and 
by  which  they  lived.    I  wondered  more  and  more, 


44  My  Autobiography 

and  after  another  look  all  the  branches  with  all  their 
branchlets  became  absorbed  in  the  stem,  and  the 
stem  was  the  tree,  and  the  tree  sprang  from  a  seed, 
or  as  it  is  now  called,  the  protoplasm;  but  beyond 
that  seed  there  was  nothing  else  that  the  eye  could 
see  or  the  mind  could  grasp.  And  while  this  vision 
floated  before  my  eyes  I  thought  of  my  little  friend, 
and  the  home  from  which  she  had  been  broken  oflF, 
and  the  same  vision  which  had  changed  the  rose- 
bush with  all  its  flowers,  and  buds,  and  branchlets, 
and  branches,  into  a  stem  and  a  tree,  and  at  last  into 
one  invisible  germ  and  seed,  seemed  now  to  change 
my  little  friend  and  her  brothers  and  sisters,  her 
parents  too  and  all  her  family,  into  one  being  which, 
like  an  old  oak  tree,  started  from  an  invisible  stem, 
or  an  invisible  seed,  or  from  an  invisible  thought, 
and  that  divine  thought  was  man,  as  the  other  di- 
vine thought  had  been  rose. 

Perhaps  I  did  not  see  it  so  fully  then  as  I  see  it 
now,  and  I  certainly  did  not  reason  about  it.  I 
simply  felt  that  in  the  death  of  my  little  friend, 
something  of  myself  had  gone,  though  she  was 
no  relation,  but  only  a  stray  human  friend.  We  see 
many  things  as  children  which  we  cannot  see  as 
grown-up  men  and  women,  for,  as  Longfellow  said, 
"  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long  long  thoughts." 
Nay,  I  feel  convinced  that  He  who  spoke  the  par- 
able of  the  vine  had  seen  the  same  vision  when  He 
said :  "  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches.  Abide 
in  Me,  and  I  in  you.     As  the  branch  cannot  bear 


Introductory  ^^ 

fruit  of  itself  except  it  abide  in  the  vine,  no  more 
can  ye,  except  ye  abide  in  Me."  And  it  is  on  this 
vision,  or  this  parable  of  the  vine,  that  immediately 
afterwards  follows  the  lesson,  "  Love  one  another, 
as  I  have  loved  you."  In  loving  one  another  we 
are  in  truth  loving  the  others  as  ourselves,  as  one 
with  ourselves;  and  while  we  are  loving  Him  who 
is  the  vine,  we  are  loving  the  branches,  ourselves 
— aye,  even  our  own  little  selves. 

Such  vague  visions  or  intuitions  often  remain 
with  us  for  life,  but  while  they  seem  to  be  the  same, 
they  vary  as  we  vary  ourselves.  We  imagine  we 
saw  their  deepest  meaning  from  the  first,  but,  like 
a  parable,  they  gain  in  meaning  every  time  they 
come  back  to  us. 


CHAPTEK   II 

CHILDHOOD  AT  DESSAU 

In  a  small  town  such  as  Dessau  was  wlien  I  lived 
there  as  a  child  and  as  a  boy,  one  lived  as  in  an 
enchanted  island.  The  horizon  was  very  narrow, 
and  nothing  happened  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the 
little  oasis.  The  Duchy  was  indeed  a  little  oasis 
in  the  large  desert  of  Central  Germany.  The  land- 
scape was  beautiful:  there  were  rivers  small  and 
large — the  Mulde  and  the  Elbe;  there  were  magnifi- 
cent oak  forests;  there  were  regiments  of  firs  stand- 
ing in  regular  columns  like  so  many  grenadiers; 
there  were  parks  such  as  one  sees  in  England  only. 
The  town,  the  capital  of  the  Duchy  of  Anhalt-Des- 
sau,  had  been  cared  for  by  successive  rulers — men 
mostly  far  in  advance  of  their  time — who  had  read 
and  travelled,  and  brought  home  the  best  they  could 
find  abroad.  Their  old  castle,  centuries  old,  over- 
awed the  town;  it  was  by  far  the  largest  building, 
though  there  were  several  other  smaller  places  in 
the  town  for  members  of  the  ducal  family.  All  the 
public  buildings,  theatres,  libraries,  schools,  and  bar- 
racks, had  been  erected  by  the  Dukes,  as  well  as  sev- 
eral private  residences  intended  for  some  of  the  high- 
er officials.  The  whole  town  was,  in  fact,  the  creation 

46 


I 


MY    FATHER 


Childhood  at  Dessau  47 

of  the  Dukes;  the  whole  ground  on  which  it  stood 
had  been  originally  their  property,  but  it  was  most- 
ly held  as  freehold  by  those  who  had  built  their 
own  private  houses  on  it.  Ko  one  would  have  built 
a  house  on  leasehold  land,  and  several  of  the  houses 
were  of  so  substantial  a  character  that  one  saw  they 
had  been  intended  to  last  for  more  than  ninety-nine 
years.  The  same  family  often  remained  in  their 
house  for  generations,  and  the  different  stories 
were  occupied  by  three  generations  at  the  same 
time — by  grandparents,  parents,  and  children.  In 
this  small  town  I  was  born  on  December  6,  1823. 
My  father,  Wilhelm  Miiller,  was  Librarian  of  the 
Ducal  Library,  and  one  of  the  most  popular  poets  in 
Germany.  A  national  monument  was  erected  to 
his  memory  at  Dessau  in  the  year  1891,  nearly  a 
hundred  years  after  his  birth. 

What  a  blessing  it  would  be  if  such  a  rule  were 
followed  with  all  great  men,  who  seem  so  great  at 
the  time  of  their  death,  and  who,  a  hundred  years 
later,  are  almost  forgotten,  or  at  all  events  appre- 
ciated by  a  small  member  of  admirers  only.  This 
Monument-  and  Society-mania  is  indeed  becoming 
very  objectionable,  for  if  for  some  time  there  has 
been  no  room  for  tombs  and  statues  in  Westminster 
Abbev,  there  will  soon  be  no  room  for  them  in  the 
streets  of  London.  The  result  is  that  many  of  the 
people  who  walk  along  the  Thames  Embankment, 
particularly  foreigners,  often  ask,  "  Cur?  "  when 
looking  at  the  human  idols  in  bronze  and  marble 


48  My  Autobiography 

put  up  there;  while  historians,  remembering  the 
really  great  men  of  England,  would  ask  quite  as 
often,  "  Cur  non?  "  There  is  a  curious  race  of  peo- 
ple, who,  as  soon  as  a  man  of  any  note  dies,  are 
ready  to  found  anything  for  him — a  monument,  a 
picture,  a  school,  a  prize,  a  society — to  keep  alive 
his  memory.  Of  course  these  societies  want  presi- 
dents, members  of  council,  committees,  secretaries, 
&c.,  and  at  last,  subscriptions  also.  Thus  it  has 
happened  that  the  name  of  founder  (Griinder)  has 
assumed,  particularly  in  Germany,  a  perfume  by  no 
means  sweet.  Those  who  are  asked  to  subscribe  to 
such  testimonials  know  how  disagreeable  it  is  to 
decline  to  give  at  least  their  name,  deeply  as  they 
feel  that  in  giving  it  they  are  offending  against  all 
the  rules  of  historical  perspective.  I  should  not 
say  that  my  father  was  one  of  the  great  poets  of 
Germany,  though  Heine,  no  mean  critic,  declared 
that  he  placed  his  lyric  poetry  next  to  that  of 
Goethe.  Besides,  he  was  barely  thirty-three  when 
he  died.  He  had  been  a  favourite  pupil  of  F.  A. 
Wolf,  and  had  proved  his  classical  scholarship  by 
his  Homerische  Vorschule,  and  other  publications. 
His  poems  became  popular  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word,  and  there  are  some  which  the  people  in  the 
street  sing  even  now  without  being  aware  of  the 
name  of  their  author.  Schubert's  compositions  also 
have  contributed  much  to  the  wide  popularity  of  his 
ScJione  Mullerin  and  his  Winterreise,  so  that 
though  it  might  truly  be  said  of  him  that  he  wanted 


Childhood  at  Dessau  49 

no  monument  in  bronze  or  stone,  it  seemed  but 
natural  that  a  small  town  like  Dessau  should  wish 
to  honour  itself  by  honouring  the  memory  of  one 
of  its  sons.  In  the  company  of  Mendelssohn,  the 
philosopher,  and  of  F.  Schneider,  the  composer,  a 
monument  of  my  father  in  the  principal  street  of 
his  native  town,  and  before  the  school  in  which  he 
had  been  a  pupil  and  a  teacher,  could  hardly  seem 
out  of  place.  That  the  Greek  Parliament  voted  the 
Pentelican  marble  for  the  poet  of  the  Griechen- 
lieder,  as  it  had  done  for  Lord  Byron,  was  another 
inducement  for  his  fellow  citizens  to  do  honour  to 
their  honoured  poet.  He  died  wdien  I  was  hardly 
four  years  old,  so  that  my  recollection  of  him  is 
very  faint  and  vague,  made  up,  I  believe,  to  a  great 
extent,  of  pictures,  and  things  that  my  mother  told 
me.  I  seem  to  remember  him  as  a  bright,  sunny, 
and  thoroughly  joyful  man,  delighted  with  our  lit- 
tle naughtinesses.  One  book  I  still  possess  which 
he  bought  for  me  and  which  was  to  be  the  first  book 
of  my  library.  It  was  a  small  volume  -of  Horace, 
printed  by  Pickering  in  1820.  It  has  now  almost 
vanished  among  the  12,000  big  volumes  that  form 
my  library,  but  I  am  delighted  that  I  am  still  able, 
at  seventy-six,  to  read  it  without  spectacles.  I 
think  I  remember  my  father  taking  my  sister  and 
me  on  his  knees,  and  telling  us  the  most  delightful 
stories,  that  set  us  wondering  and  laughing  and 
crying  till  we  could  laugh  and  cry  no  longer.  He 
had  been  a  fellow  worker  with  the  brothers  Grimm, 


^0  My  Autobiography 

and  the  stories  he  told  were  mostly  from  their  col- 
lection, though  he  knew  how  to  embellish  them 
with  anything  that  could  make  a  child  cry  and 
laugh. 

People  have  little  idea  how  great  and  how  lasting 
an  influence  such  popular  stories  about  kings  and 
queens,  and  princesses  and  knights,  about  ogres  and 
witches,  about  men  that  have  been  changed  into 
animals,  and  about  animals  that  talk  and  behave 
like  human  beings,  exercise  on  the  imagination  of 
young  children.  While  we  listened,  a  new  world 
seemed  to  open  before  us,  and  anything  like  doubt 
as  to  the  reality  of  these  beings  never  existed. 
Wliat  was  reality  or  unreality  to  young  children 
of  four  and  five  ?  How  few  people  know  what  real 
reality  is,  even  after  they  have  reached  the  age  of 
fifty  or  sixty.  For  children,  such  names  as  reality 
and  unreality  do  not  exist,  nor  the  ideas  which  they 
express.  They  listen  to  what  their  father  tells  them, 
and  they  cannot  see  any  difference  between  what 
he  tells  them  of  Frederick  Barbarossa,  of  Romulus 
and  Remus  suckled  by  a  wolf,  or  of  the  dwarfs  that 
guarded  the  coffin  of  Schneewittchen. 

Some  people,  however,  have  thought  that  from 
an  educational  point  of  view,  a  belief  in  this  im 
aginary  world  must  be  mischievous.  I  doubt  it, 
and  it  would  be  easy  to  show  that  originally  these 
stories  and  fables  were  really  meant  to  inculcate 
right  and  good  principles.  Luther  declared  that  he 
would  not  lose  these  wonderful  stories  of  his  tender 


Childhood  at  Dessau  51 

childhood  for  any  sum  of  money,  and  Camerarlus 
(Fahulae  Aesopeae,  p.  40G,  Lipsiae,  1570)  speaks  of 
these  German  fables  as  filling  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  particularly  of  children,  with  terror,  hope, 
and  religion.  The  oldest  collections  in  which  some 
of  these  Aesopean  fables  occur,  the  Pantscliatantra 
and  Hitopadesa  in  Sanskrit,  were  distinctly  intended 
for  the  education  of  princes,  and  though  they  may 
make  the  young  listeners  inclined  to  be  supersti- 
tious, such  superstitiousness  is  not  likely  to  last  long. 
Children  delight  in  Mdrchen  as  in  a  kind  of  panto- 
mime, and  when  the  curtain  has  fallen  on  that  fairy 
world  they  often  think  of  it  as  of  a  beautiful  dream 
that  has  passed  away.  The  stories  are  cei-tainly 
more  impressive  than  the  proverbs  and  wise  saws 
which  many  of  them  were  meant  to  illustrate,  with- 
out always  saying,  haec  fabula  docet.  Even  if  some 
of  these  stories  touch  sometimes  on  what  may  not 
seem  to  us  quite  correct,  it  is  done  to  make  children 
laugh  rather  at  the  silliness  than  cry  at  the  downright 
wickedness  of  some  of  the  heroes.  It  is  by  no  means 
uncommon,  for  instance,  that  a  good-for-nothing 
fellow  succeeds,  while  his  virtuous  companions  fail. 
But  there  is  either  a  reason  for  it,  or  the  injustice 
provokes  the  indignation  of  children,  long  before 
they  have  learnt  that  in  real  life  also  virtue  does  not 
always  receive  its  reward,  while  falsehood  often 
prospers,  at  least  for  a  time.  There  is  no  harm,  I 
think,  in  a  certain  dreaminess  in  children.  I  re- 
member that  I  have  often  laughed  with  all  my  heart 


52  My  Autobiography 

at  Rumpelstilzchen,  and  shed  bitter  tears  at  Brlider- 
cben  and  Schwesterclien.  I  seemed  to  see  brother 
and  sister  driven  into  the  wood,  the  brother  being 
changed  into  a  deer,  and  the  sister  sleeping  with  her 
head  on  his  warm  fur,  till  at  last  the  deer  was  killed 
by  a  huntsman,  and  the  little  sister  had  to  travel  on 
quite  alone  in  the  forest.  Of  course  in  the  end  she 
became  a  princess,  and  the  brother  a  prince  who 
married  a  queen,  and  all  ended  in  gi^at  joy  and 
jubilation  in  which  we  all  joined.  How  good  for 
children  that  they  should  for  a  time  at  least  have 
lived  in  such  a  dreamland,  in  which  truthfulness 
was  as  a  rule  rewarded,  and  falsehood  punished  in 
the  end. 

It  was  like  a  recollection  of  a  Paradise,  and  such 
a  recollection,  even  if  it  brought  out  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  dream-world  and  the  real  world,  would 
often  set  children  musing  on  what  ought  and  what 
ought  not  to  be.  They  did  not  long  believe  in 
Domroschen  and  Schneewittchen,  they  learnt  but 
too  soon  that  Domroschen  and  Schneewittchen 
belonged  to  another  world.  They  may  even  have 
come  to  learn  that  Domroschen  (thorn-rose)  and 
Schneewittchen  (snow-white)  were  meant  originally 
for  the  sleep  or  death  of  nature  in  her  snow-white 
shroud,  and  the  return  of  the  sun;  but  woe  to  the 
boy  who  on  first  learning  these  stories  should  have 
declared  that  they  were  mere  bosh,  or,  as  Sir  Walter 
Scott  says,  the  detritus  of  nature-myths. 

My  father's  father,  whom  I  never  knew,  seems 


Childhood  at  Dessau 


53 


not  to  have  been  distinguished  in  any  way.  He 
was,  however,  a  useful  tradesman  and  a  respected 
citizen  of  Dessau,  and,  as  I  see,  the  founder  of  the 
first  lending  library  in  that  small  town.  He  married 
a  second  time,  a  rich  widow,  chiefly,  as  I  was  told, 
to  enable  him  to  give  his  son,  my  father,  a  liberal 
education.  She  gi-ew  to  be  very  old,  and  I  well  re- 
member her,  to  me,  forbidding  and  terrifying  ap- 
pearance. She  quite  belonged  to  a  past  generation, 
and  when  I  saw  her  again  after  having  been  in 
England,  she  asked  me  whether  I  had  seen  Napo- 
leon who  had  been  taken  prisoner  and  sent  to  Eng- 
land, but  had  lately  escaped  and  resumed  his  throne 
in  Paris.  She  evidently  mixed  up  the  two  Napo- 
leons, and  I  did  not  contradict  her.  To  me  her  con- 
versation was  interesting  as  showing  how  little  the 
traditions  of  the  people  can  be  relied  on,  and  how 
easily,  by  the  side  of  real  history,  a  popular  history 
could  grow  up.  After  all,  the  poems  of  Charle- 
magne besieging  Jerusalem  owed  their  origin  very 
likely  to  some  similar  confusion  in  the  minds  of  old 
women.  My  sister  and  I  were  always  terrified  when 
we  were  sent  to  visit  her,  for  with  her  dishevelled 
grey  hair,  her  thin  white  face,  and  her  piercing 
eyes,  she  was  to  us  the  old  grandmother,  or  the 
witch  of  Grimm's  stories;  and  the  language  she 
used  was  such  that,  if  we  repeated  it  at  home,  we 
were  severely  reprimanded.  She  knew  very  little 
about  my  father,  but  her  memory  about  her  first 
husband  and  about  her  own  youth  and  childhood 


3*4  My  Autobiography 

was  very  clear,  though  not  always  edifying.  Her 
stories  about  ghosts,  witches,  ogres,  nickers,  and  the 
whole  of  that  race  were  certainly  enough  to  frighten 
a  child,  and  some  of  them  clung  to  me  for  a  very 
long  time.  On  my  mother's  side  my  relations  were 
more  civilized,  and  they  had  but  little  social  inter- 
course with  my  grandmother  and  her  relatives.  My 
mother's  father  was  von  Basedow,  the  President, 
that  is  Prime  Minister  of  the  Duchy  of  Anhalt- 
Dessau,  a  position  in  which  he  was  succeeded  by  his 
eldest  son,  my  uncle.  He  was  the  first  man  in  the 
town;  the  Duke  and  he  really  ruled  the  Duchy  ex- 
actly as  they  pleased.  There  was  no  check  on  them 
of  any  kind,  and  yet  no  one,  as  far  as  I  know,  ever 
complained  of  any  tyranny.  My  grandfather's 
father  again  was  the  famous  reformer  of  public  edu- 
cation in  Germany.  He  (1723-1790)  had  to  brave 
the  conservative  and  clerical  parties  throughout  the 
country.  His  home  at  Hamburg  was  burnt  in  a 
riot,  and  it  was  then  that  he  migrated  to  Dessau,  to 
become  the  founder  of  the  Philanthropinum,  and 
at  the  same  time  the  path-breaker  for  men  such  as 
Pestalozzi  (1746-1827)  and  Froebel  (1782-1852). 
Considering  his  lifelong  struggles,  he  deserved  a 
better  monument  at  Dessau  than  he  has  found  there. 
No  doubt  he  was  a  passionate  and  violent  man,  and 
his  outbreaks  are  still  remembered  at  Dessau,  while 
his  beneficial  activity  has  almost  been  forgotten.  I 
was  often  told  that  I  took  after  my  mother's  family, 
whatever  that  may  mean,  and  this  was  certainly  the 


Childhood  at  Dessau  j"^ 

case  in  outward  appearance,  though  I  hope  not  in 
temper.  My  great  grandfather,  the  Pedagogue  as 
he  was  called,  was  a  friend  of  Goethe's,  and  is  men- 
tioned in  his  poems. 

My  childhood  at  home  was  often  very  sad.  My 
mother,  who  was  left  a  widow  at  twenty-eight  with 
two  children,  my  sister  and  myself,  was  heart- 
broken. The  few  years  of  her  married  life  had  been 
most  bright  and  brilliant.  My  father  was  a  rising 
poet,  and  such  was  his  popularity  that  he  was  able 
to  indulge  his  tastes  as  he  liked,  whether  in  travelling 
or  in  making  his  house  a  pleasant  centre  of  social 
life.  Contemporaries  and  friends  of  my  father,  par- 
ticularly Baron  Simolin,  a  very  intimate  friend, 
who  spent  the  Christmas  of  1825  in  our  house,  have 
written  of  the  bright  gaiety,  the  whole-hearted  en- 
joyment of  life  that  reigned  there,  and  have  told 
how,  though  his  income  was  to  say  the  least  of  it 
small,  Wilhelm  Miiller's  home  was  the  rallying- 
point  for  all  the  cultivated,  scientific,  and  artistic 
society  of  Dessau,  who  felt  attracted  by  the  simple 
and  unaffected  yet  truly  genial  disposition  of  the 
master  of  the  house. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  much  an 
author  could  make  at  that  time  by  his  pen.  Pub- 
lishers seem  to  have  been  far  more  liberal  then  than 
they  are  now.  The  circumstances  were  diiferent. 
The  number  of  writers  was  of  course  much  smaller, 
and  the  sale  of  really  popular  books  probably  much 
larger.    Anyhow,  my  father,  whose  salary  was  mi- 


56  My  Autobiography 

nute,  seems  to  have  been  able  to  enjoy  the  few  years 
of  his  married  life  in  great  comfort.  The  thought 
of  saving  money,  however,  seems  never  to  have  en- 
tered his  poetical  mind,  and  after  his  unexpected 
death,  due  to  paralysis  of  the  heart,  it  was  found 
that  hardly  any  provision  had  been  made  for  his 
family.  Even  the  life  insurance,  which  is  obliga- 
tory on  every  civil  servant,  and  the  pension  granted 
by  the  Duke,  gave  my  mother  but  a  very  small  in- 
come, fabulously  small,  when  one  considers  that  she 
had  to  bring  up  two  children  on  it.  It  has  been  a 
riddle  to  me  ever  since  how  she  was  able  to  do  it. 

However,  it  was  done,  and  could  only  have  been 
done  in  a  small  town  like  Dessau,  where  education 
was  as  good  as  it  was  cheap,  and  where  very  little 
was  expected  by  society.  We  must  also  take  into 
account  the  very  low  prices  which  then  ruled  at 
Dessau  with  regard  to  almost  all  the  necessaries  of 
life.  I  see  from  the  old  newspapers  that  beef  sold 
at  about  threepence  a  pound  (two  groschen),  mutton 
at  about  twopence.  Wine  was  sold  at  seven  to  eight 
groschen  a  bottle,  a  better  sort  for  twelve  to  fourteen 
groschen — a  groschen  being  about  a  penny.  People 
drank  mostly  beer,  and  this  was  sold  under  Govern- 
ment inspection  at  two  to  three  groschen  per  quart. 
Fish  was  equally  cheap,  and  such,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  century,  was  the  abundance  of  salmon  caught 
in  the  Elbe,  and  even  in  the  Mulde  at  Dessau,  that 
it  was  stipulated  as  in  Scotland,  that  servants  should 
not  have  salmon  more  than  twice  or  thrice  in  the 


Childhood  at  Dessau  j^y 

week.  The  lowest  price  for  salmon  was  then  two- 
pence halfpenny  a  pound.  As  a  boy  I  can  remem- 
ber seeing  the  salmon  in  large  numbers  leap  over 
a  weir  in  the  very  town  of  Dessau,  and  though  they 
had  travelled  for  so  many  miles  inland,  the  fish  was 
very  good,  though  not  so  good  as  Severn  salmon. 
Game  also  was  very  cheap,  and  sold  for  not  much 
more  than  mutton,  nay,  at  certain  times  it  was  given 
away;  it  could  not  be  exported.  Corn  was  sold  at 
three  shillings  per  Scheffel,  and  by  corn  was  chiefly 
meant  rye.  No  one  took  wheaten  bread,  and  the 
bread  was  therefore  called  brown  bread  and  black 
bread.  White  bread  was  only  taken  with  coffee, 
and  peasants  in  the  villages  would  not  have  touched 
it,  because  it  was  not  supposed  to  make  such  strong 
bones  as  rye-bread.  With  such  prices  we  can  un- 
derstand that  a  salary  of  £300  was  considered  suffi- 
cient for  the  highest  officers  of  state. 

My  mother's  relations,  who  were  all  high  in  the 
public  ser^ace,  my  grandfather,  as  I  said,  being  the 
Duke's  chief  minister,  made  life  more  easy  and 
pleasant  for  us;  but  for  many  years  my  mother 
never  went  into  society,  and  our  society  consisted 
of  members  of  our  own  family  only.  All  I  remem- 
ber of  my  mother  at  that  time  was  that  she  took  her 
two  children  day  after  day  to  the  beautiful  Gottes- 
acJcer  (God's  Acre),  where  she  stood  for  hours  at 
our  father's  grave,  and  sobbed  and  cried.  It  was  a 
beautiful  and  restful  place,  covered  with  old  acacia 
trees.    The  inscription  over  the  gateway  was  one  of 


c8  My  Autobiography 

my  earliest  puzzles.  Tod  ist  nicht  Todj  ist  nur 
Veredlung  menschlicher  Natur  (Death  is  not 
death,  'tis  but  the  ennobling  of  man's  nature).  On 
each  side  there  stood  a  figure,  representing  the 
genius  of  sleep  and  the  genius  of  death.  All  this 
was  the  work  of  the  old  Duke,  Leopold  Friedrich 
Franz,  who  tried  to  educate  hi&  people  as  he  had  edu- 
cated himself,  partly  by  travel,  partly  by  intercourse 
with  the  best  men  he  could  attract  to  Dessau. 

At  home  the  atmosphere  was  certainly  depressing 
to  a  boy.  I  heard  and  thought  more  about  death 
than  about  life,  though  I  knew  little  of  course  of 
what  life  or  death  meant.  I  had  but  few  pleasures, 
and  my  chief  happiness  was  to  be  with  my  mother. 
I  shared  her  grief  without  understanding  much 
about  it.  She  was  passionately  devoted  to  her 
children,  and  I  was  passionately  fond  of  her.  What 
there  was  left  of  life  to  her,  she  gave  to  us,  she  lived 
for  us  only,  and  tried  very  hard  not  to  deprive  our 
childhood  of  all  brightness.  She  was  certainly  most 
beautiful,  and  quite  different  from  all  other  ladies 
at  Dessau,  not  only  in  the  eyes  of  her  son,  but  as 
it  seemed  to  me,  of  everybody.  Then  she  had  a 
most  perfect  voice,  and  when  I  first  began  music 
she  helped  and  encouraged  me  in  every  possible  way. 
We  played  a  quatre  mains,  and  soon  she  made  me 
accompany  her  when  she  sang.  As  far  as  I  can 
recollect,  I  was  never  so  happy  as  when  I  could 
be  with  her.  She  read  so  much  to  us  that  I  was 
quite  satisfied,  and  saw  perhaps  less  of  my  young 


MY    MOTHER 


Childhood  at  Dessau  59 

friends  than  I  ought.  "When  my  mother  said  she 
wished  to  die,  and  to  be  with  our  father,  I  feel 
sure  that  my  sister  and  I  were  only  anxious  that  she 
should  take  us  with  her,  for  there  were  few  golden 
chains  that  bound  us  as  yet  to  this  life.  I  see  her 
now,  sitting  on  a  winter's  evening  near  the  warm 
stove,  a  candle  on  the  table,  and  a  book  from  which 
she  read  to  us  in  her  hands,  while  the  spinning-wheel 
worked  by  the  servant-maid  in  the  corner  went  on 
humming  all  the  time.  She  read  Paul  Gerhard's 
translation  of  St.  Bernard's: 

"  Salve  caput  cruentatum, 
Totum  spinis  coronatum, 
Conquassatum,  vulneratum, 
Arundine  verberatuin, 
Facies  sputis  illita." 

••  O  Haupt  voll  Blut  und  Wunden, 
Voll  Schmerz  und  voller  Hohn  ! 
O  Haupt  zu  Spott  gebunden 
Mit  einer  Dornenkron, 
O  Haupt  sonst  schon  gezieret 
Mit  hochster  Ehr  und  Zier, 
Jetzt  aber  hoch  schimpflret  : 
GegrUsset  seist  du  mir  ! ' ' 

Though  the  German  translation  does  not  come 
near  the  powerful  majesty  of  the  original,  yet  such 
was  the  effect  produced  on  me  that  I  saw  the  bleed- 
ing head  before  my  eyes,  and  cried  and  cried  until 
my  mother  had  to  comfort  me  by  assuring  me  that 
the    sufferer   was    now   in    Heaven   and   that   it 


6o  My  Autobiography 

was  only  a  song  to  be  sung  in  church.  How 
deeply  such  scenes  seem  engraved  on  the  memory; 
how  vividly  they  return  when  the  rubbish  of  many 
years  is  swept  away  and  all  is  again  as  it  was  then, 
and  the  caput  cruentatum  looks  down  on  us  once 
more,  as  it  did  then,  with  the  human  eyes  full  of 
divine  love,  so  truly  human  that  one  could  say  with 
St.  Bernard,  "  Tuum  caput  hue  inclina,  in  meis 
pausa  brachiis."  But  willingly  as  I  listened  to  these 
readings  at  home,  and  full  as  my  heart  was  of  love  to 
Christ,  I  suffered  intensely  when  I  was  taken  to 
church  as  a  young  boy.  It  was  a  very  large  church, 
and  in  winter  bitterly  cold.  Even  though  I  liked 
the  singing,  the  long  sermon  was  real  torture  to  me. 
I  could  not  understand  a  word  of  it,  and  being  thinly 
clad  my  teeth  would  have  chattered  if  I  had  not 
been  told  that  it  was  wrong  "  to  make  a  noise  in 
church."  Oh!  what  misery  is  inflicted  on  child- 
hood by  this  enforced  attendance  at  church.  When 
a  chiu-ch  can  be  warmed  the  suffering  is  less  intense, 
but  a  huge  whitewashed  church  that  feels  like  an 
ice-cellar  is  about  the  worst  torture  that  human 
ingenuity  could  have  invented  to  make  children 
hate  the  very  name  of  church.  These  early  impres- 
sions often  remain  for  life,  and  the  worst  of  it  is 
that  the  idea  remains  in  the  minds  of  children,  and 
of  grown-up  people  too,  that  by  going  to  church 
and  repeating  the  same  prayers  over  and  over  again, 
and  listening  to  long  and  often  dreary  sermons,  they 
are  actually  doing  a  service  to  God  {Gottesdienst). 


Childhood  at  Dessau  6l 

Why  does  no  new  prophet  arise  and  say  in  the  name 
of  God,  as  Da\dd  did  in  the  name  of  Jehovah, 
"  Sermons  and  long  prayers  '  thou  didst  not  de- 
sire '  "  ? 

Many  years  later  I  had  to  discuss  the  same  ques- 
tion with  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  the  Indian  Re- 
former. He  wanted  to  know  what  kind  of  service 
should  be  adopted  by  his  new  church,  the  Brahmo 
Somaj ;  his  friends  thought  of  sermons,  singing,  and 
processions  with  flags  and  flowers  through  the  streets. 
"  No,"  I  said  to  him,  "  service  of  God  should  be 
service  of  men;  if  you  want  divine  service,  let  it 
be  a  real  service,  such  as  God  would  approve  of. 
Let  other  people  go  to  church,  to  their  mosques  or 
their  temples,  but  take  you  your  own  friends  on 
certain  days  of  the  week  to  whatever  you  like  to 
call  your  meeting-place,  and  after  a  short  prayer 
or  a  few  words  of  advice  send  some  of  them  to  the 
poorest  streets  in  the  city,  others  to  the  prisons, 
others  to  the  hospitals.  Let  them  pray  with  all  who 
wish  to  pray,  but  let  them  speak  words  of  true  love 
and  comfort  also,  and  when  they  can,  let  them  help 
them  with  their  alms.  That  would  be  a  real  Divine 
Service  and  a  divine  Sunday  for  you,  and  you 
would  all  come  home,  it  may  be  sadder,  but  certain- 
ly wiser  and  better  men." 

I  am  afraid  he  did  not  agree  with  me.  He  did 
not  think  that  true  religion  was  to  visit  the  poor  and 
the  afflicted.  That  might  do  for  a  practical  people 
like  the  English,  but  the  Hindu  wanted  something 


62  My  Autobiography 

else,  he  wanted  some  outward  show  and  ceremony 
for  the  people,  and  at  the  same  time  some  silent 
communion  with  God.  Who  can  tell  what  differ- 
ent people  understand  by  religion?  and  who  can 
prescribe  the  spiritual  food  that  is  best  for  them? 
"  Only,"  I  said,  "  do  not  call  it  practical  to  encom*- 
age  millions  of  people  to  waste  hours  and  hours  in 
mere  repetition,  and  to  spend  millions  and  millions 
in  supplying  this  cold  comfort,  when  next  door  to 
the  magnificent  cathedral  there  are  squalid  streets, 
and  squalid  houses,  and  squalid  beds  to  lie  and 
die  on." 

The  religious  and  devotional  element  is  very 
strong  in  Germany,  but  the  churches  are  mostly 
empty.  A  German  keeps  his  religion  for  week- 
days rather  than  for  Sunday.  When  the  German 
regiments  marched,  and  when  they  made  ready  for 
battle,  they  did  not  sing  ribald  songs,  they  sang  the 
songs  of  Luther  and  Paul  Gerhard,  which  they 
knew  by  heart  and  which  strengthened  them  to 
face  death  as  it  ought  to  be  faced. 

Fortunately,  while  enforced  attendance  at  church 
was  apt  to  produce  the  strongest  aversion  in  the 
young  heart  against  anything  that  was  called  re- 
ligion, religious  instruction  both  at  home  and  at 
school  too  was  excellent,  and  undid  much  of  the  mis- 
chief that  had  been  done  during  cold  winter  days. 
True  religious  sentiments  can  be  planted  in  the  soul 
at  home  only,  by  a  mother  better  even  than  by  a 
father.    The  sense  of  a  divine  presence  everywhere, 


Childhood  at  Dessau  63 

irdvra  7r\ijp7j  Oewv,  once  planted  in  the  heart 
of  a  child  remains  for  life.  Of  course  the  child 
soon  begins  to  argue,  and  says  to  his  mother  that 
God  cannot  be  at  the  same  time  in  two  rooms.  But 
only  let  a  mother  show  to  the  child  the  rays  of  the 
sun  in  the  sky,  in  the  streets,  and  in  every  corner  of 
the  house,  and  it  will  begin  to  understand  that  noth- 
ing can  be  hid  from  the  eyes  of  Him  who  is  greater 
than  the  sun.  And  when  a  child  doubts  whether 
the  voice  of  conscience  can  be  the  voice  of  God,  and 
asks  how  he  could  hear  that  voice  without  seeing 
the  speaker,  ask  him  only  whose  voice  it  can  be  that 
tells  him  not  to  do  what  he  himself  wishes  to  do, 
and  not  to  say  what  he  could  say  without  any  fear 
of  men;  and  his  idea  of  God  will  be  raised  from  that 
of  a  visible  being  like  the  sun,  to  the  concept  of  a 
presence  that  never  vanishes,  that  is  not  only  with- 
out, in  the  sky,  in  the  mountains,  and  in  the  storm, 
but  nearer  also  within,  in  the  sense  of  fear,  in  the 
sense  of  shame,  and  in  the  hope  of  pardon  and  love. 
At  school  our  religious  teaching  was  chiefly  his- 
torical and  moral.  There  was  no  difficulty  in  find- 
ing proper  teachers  for  that,  and  there  were  no 
attempts  on  the  part  of  parents  to  interfere  with 
religious  instruction  or  to  demand  separate  teaching 
for  each  sect.  It  is  true  that  religious  sects  are  not 
so  numerous  in  Germany  as  they  are  in  England. 
Some,  though  by  no  means  all,  children  of  Roman 
Catholic  and  Jewish  parents  were  allowed  to  be  ab- 
sent from  religious  lessons.    But  most  parents  knew 


64  My  Autobiography 

that  the  history  of  the  Jewish  religion  would  be 
taught  at  school  in  so  impartial  and  truly  historical 
a  spirit  as  never  to  offend  Jewish  children.  Respect 
for  historical  truth,  and  an  implanted  sense  of  the 
reverence  due  to  children,  would  keep  any  teacher 
from  making  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church, 
whether  before  or  after  the  Reformation,  an  excuse 
for  offending  one  of  the  little  ones  committed 
to  his  care.  If  Jews  or  Roman  Catholics  wished 
for  any  special  religious  instruction  it  was  given 
by  their  own  priests  or  Rabbis,  and  was  given  with- 
out any  interference  on  the  part  of  the  Government. 
But  such  was  at  my  time  the  state  of  public 
feeling  that  I  hardly  knew  at  school  who  among  my 
young  friends  were  Roman  Catholics,  or  Luther- 
ans, or  Reformed.  I  must  admit,  however,  that  the 
very  name  of  Luther  might  have  offended  Roman 
Catholics.  He  was  represented  to  us  as  a  perfect 
saint,  almost  as  inspired  and  infallible.  His  hymns 
sung  in  church  seemed  to  us  little  different  from  the 
Psalms  of  David,  and  I  well  remember  what  a  shock 
it  gave  me  when  at  Oxford,  much  later  in  life,  I 
heard  Luther  spoken  of  like  any  other  mortal,  nay, 
as  a  heretic,  and  a  most  dangerous  heretic  too. 
When  I  was  a  boy  I  remember  that  in  some  places 
the  same  building  had  to  be  used  for  Protestant 
and  Roman  Catholic  services.  All  that,  I  am 
afraid,  is  now  changed,  and  the  old  liberal  and  toler- 
ant feeling  then  prevailing  on  all  sides  is  now  often 
stigmatized   as   indifference,    and    by    other   ugly 


Childhood  at  Dessau  65 

names.  It  should  really  be  called  the  golden  age 
of  Christianity,  and  this  so-called  indifference 
should  be  classed  among  the  highest  Christian  virt- 
ues, and  as  the  fullest  realization  of  the  spirit  of 
Christ.  ^ 

Thus  we  grew  up  from  our  earliest  youth,  being 
taught  to  look  upon  Christianity  as  an  historical 
fact,  on  Christ  and  His  disciples  as  historical  char- 
acters, on  the  Old  and  !N"ew  Testaments  as  real  his- 
torical books.  Though  we  did  not  understand  as 
yet  the  deeper  meaning  of  Christ  and  of  His  words, 
we  had  at  least  nothing  to  unlearn  in  later  times,  or 
to  feel  that  our  parents  had  ever  told  us  what  they 
themselves  could  not  have  held  to  be  true.  Our 
simple  faith  was  not  shaken  by  mere  questions  of 
criticism,  or  by  the  problem  how  any  human  being 
could  take  upon  himself  to  declare  any  book  to  be 
revealed,  unless  he  claimed  for  himself  a  more  than 
human  insight.  The  simplest  rules  of  logic  should 
make  such  a  declaration  impossible,  whatever  the 
sacred  book  may  be  to  which  it  is  applied.  Granted 
that  the  Pope  was  infallible,  how  could  the  Cardi- 
nals know  that  he  was,  unless  they  claimed  for  them- 
selves the  same  or  even  greater  infallibility?  It  13 
far  more  easy  to  be  inspired  than  to  know  some  one 
else  is  or  was  inspired;  the  true  inspiration  is,  and 
always  has  been,  the  spirit  of  truth  within,  and  this 
is  but  another  name  for  the  spirit  of  God.  It  is  truth 
that  makes  inspiration,  not  inspiration  that  makes 
truth.     Whoever  knows  what  truth  is,  knows  also 


66  My  Autobiography 

wliat  inspiration  is:  not  only  iJieopneustos,  blown 
into  the  soul  by  God,  but  the  very  voice  of  God, 
the  real  presence  of  God,  the  only  presence  in  which 
we,  as  human  beings,  can  ever  perceive  Him. 

How  often  have  I  in  later  life  tried  to  explain 
this  to  my  friends  in  France  and  in  England  who 
endured  mental  agonies  before  they  could  arrive 
at  the  simple  conclusion  that  revelation  can  never 
be  objective,  but  must  always  be  subjective.  I  may 
return  to  this  question  at  a  later  period  of  my  life, 
when  I  had  to  discuss  with  Renan,  at  Paris,  with 
Froude,  Kingsley,  and  Liddon,  in  England,  and 
tried  to  show  how  entirely  self-made  some  of  their 
difficulties  were.  At  present  I  have  only  to  explain 
how  it  was  that  I  had  never  to  extricate  myself  from 
a  net  in  which  so  many  honest  thinkers  find  them- 
selves entangled  without  any  fault  of  their  own; 
as  Samson,  when  he  awoke,  found  himself  bound 
with  seven  green  withs  and  had  to  break  them  with 
all  his  might  before  he  could  hope  to  escape  from 
the  Philistines.  The  Philistines  never  bound  me. 
During  my  early  schooldays  these  difficulties  did 
not  exist,  but  I  have  often  been  grateful  in  after  life 
that  the  seven  locks  of  my  head  have  never  been 
woven  with  the  web. 

I  remember  a  number  of  small  events  in  my 
school-life  at  Dessau,  but  though  they  were  full  of 
interest  to  me,  nay,  full  of  meaning,  and  not  without 
an  influence  on  my  later  life,  they  would  have  no 
meaning  and  no  interest  for  others,  and  may  remain 


Childhood  at  Dessau  67 

as  if  they  had  never  been.  The  influence  which 
music  exercised  on  my  mind,  and,  I  heheve,  on  my 
heart  also,  I  have  related  in  my  Musical  Becollec- 
tions.  The  image  of  those  passing  years,  though  its 
general  tone  was  melancholy,  chiefly  owing  to  my 
mother's  melancholy,  seemed  to  me  at  the  time 
free  from  all  unhappiness.  My  work  at  school  and 
at  home  was  not  too  heavy;  I  was  fond  of  it,  and 
very  fond  of  books.  Books  were  scarce  then,  and 
whoever  possessed  a  new  and  valuable  book  was  ex- 
pected to  lend  it  to  his  friends  in  the  little  town. 
If  a  man  was  known  to  possess,  say,  Goethe's  works 
or  Jean  Paul's  works,  the  consequence  was  that  one 
went  to  him  or  to  her  to  ask  for  the  loan  of  them. 
And  not  only  books,  but  paper  and  pens  also  were 
scarce.  The  first  steel  pens  came  in  when  I  was 
still  in  the  lower  school,  and  bad  as  they  were  they 
were  looked  upon  as  real  treasures  by  the  school- 
boys who  possessed  them.  Paper  was  so  dear  that 
one  had  to  be  very  sparing  in  its  use.  Every  mar- 
gin and  cover  was  scribbled  over  before  it  was 
thrown  away,  and  I  felt  often  so  hampered  by  the 
scarcity  of  paper  that  I  gladly  accepted  a  set  of 
copybooks  instead  of  any  other  present  that  I 
might  have  asked  for  on  my  birthday  or  at 
Christmas.  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  have  had  to  suffer 
all  my  life  from  the  inefficiency  of  our  writing 
master,  or  maybe  from  the  fact  that  my  thoughts 
were  too  quick  for  my  pen.  In  other  subjects  I  did 
well,  but  though  I  was  among  the  first  in  each  class, 


68  My  Autobiography 

I  was  by  no  means  cleverer  than  other  boys.  In 
the  lower  school  work  was  more  like  conversation 
or  like  hearing  news  from  our  teachers.  The  idea 
of  effort  did  not  yet  exist.  The  drudgery  began, 
however,  when  I  entered  the  upper  school,  the 
gymnasium,  and  learnt  the  elements  of  Latin  and 
Greek.  Though  our  teachers  were  very  conscien- 
tious, they  tried  to  make  our  work  no  burden  to  us, 
and  the  constant  change  of  places  in  each  class  kept 
up  a  lively  rivalry  among  the  boys,  though  I  am 
not  sure  that  it  did  not  make  me  rather  ambitious 
and  at  times  conceited.  Still,  I  had  few  enemies, 
and  it  seemed  of  much  more  consequence  who  could 
knock  down  another  boy  than  who  could  gain  a 
place  above  him.  I  feel  sure  I  could  have  done  a 
great  deal  more  at  school  than  I  did,  but  it  was 
partly  my  music  and  partly  my  incessant  headaches 
that  interfered  with  my  school  work. 

I  remember  as  a  boy  that  certain  streets  were  in- 
habited exclusively  by  Jewish  families.  A  large 
number  of  Jews  had  been  received  at  Dessau  by 
a  former  Duke;  but  though  he  granted  them  leave 
to  settle  at  Dessau  when  they  were  persecuted  in 
other  parts  of  Germany,  he  stipulated  that  they 
should  only  settle  in  certain  streets.  These  streets 
were  by  no  means  the  worst  streets  of  the  town; 
on  the  contrary  they  showed  greater  comfort  and 
hardly  any  of  the  squalor  which  disgraced  the  Jew- 
ish quarters  in  other  towns  in  Germany.  As  chil- 
dren we  were  brought  up  without  any  prejudice 


Childhood  at  Dessau  69 

against  the  Jews,  though  we  had,  no  doubt,  a  cer- 
tain feeling  that  they  were  tolerated  only,  and  were 
not  quite  on  the  same  level  with  ourselves.  We  also 
felt  the  religious  difficulty  sometimes  very  strongly. 
Were  not  the  Jews  the  murderers  of  Christ?  and 
had  they  not  said:  "  the  blood  be  on  us  and  on  our 
children  "  ?  But  as  we  were  told  that  it  was  WTong 
to  harbour  feelings  of  revenge,  we  boys  soon  forgot 
and  forgave,  and  played  together  as  the  best  friends. 
I  remember  picking  up  a  number  of  Jewish  words 
which  would  not  have  been  understood  anywhere 
else.  I  was  hardly  aware  that  they  were  Jewish  and 
used  them  like  any  other  words.  But  I  once  gave 
great  offence  to  my  friend  Professor  Bernays,  who 
was  a  Jew.  He  had  uttered  some  quite  incredible 
statement,  and  I  exclaimed,  "  Sind  Sie  denn  ganz 
maschukke?" — Hebrew  for  "mad."  I  meant  no 
harm,  but  he  was  very  much  hurt. 

I  knew  several  Jewish  families,  and  received 
much  kindness  from  them  as  a  boy.  Many  of  these 
families  w^re  wealthy,  but  they  never  displayed 
their  wealth,  and  in  consequence  excited  no  envy= 
All  that  is  changed  now.  The  children  of  the  Jews 
who  formerly  lived  in  a  very  quiet  style  at  Dessau, 
now  occupy  the  best  houses,  indulge  in  most  expen- 
sive tastes,  and  try  in  every  way  to  outshine  their 
non-Jewish  neighbours.  They  buy  themselves 
titles,  and,  when  they  can,  stipulate  for  stars  and 
orders  as  rewards  for  successful  financial  operations, 
carried  out  with  the  money  of  princely  personages. 


JO  My  Autobiography 

Hence  the  re"\a^ilsion  of  feeling  all  over  Germany, 
or  what  is  called  Anti-Semitism,  which  has  assumed 
not  only  a  social  but  a  political  significance.  I  doubt 
whether  there  is  anything  religious  in  it,  as  there 
was  when  we  were  boys.  The  Anti-Semitic  hatred 
is  the  hatred  of  money-making,  more  particularly 
of  that  kind  of  money-making  which  requires  no 
hard  work,  but  only  a  large  capital  to  begin  with, 
and  boldness  and  astuteness  in  speculating,  that  is 
in  buying  and  selling  at  the  right  moment.  The 
sinews  of  war  for  that  kind  of  financial  warfare  were 
mostly  supplied  by  the  fathers  and  grandfathers  of 
the  present  generation.  Sometimes,  no  doubt,  the 
capital  was  lost,  and  in  those  cases  it  must  be  said 
that  the  Jewish  speculator  disappears  from  the  stage 
wdthout  a  sigh  or  a  cry.  He  begins  again,  and  if 
he  should  have  to  do  what  his  grandfather  did,  walk 
from  house  to  house  \\dth  a  bag  on  his  back,  he  does 
not  whine. 

One  cannot  blame  the  Jews  or  any  other  specu- 
lators for  using  their  opportunities,  but  they  must 
not  complain  either  if  they  excite  envy,  and  if  that 
envy  assumes  in  the  end  a  dangerous  character. 
The  Jews,  so  far  from  suffering  from  disabilities, 
enjoy  really  certain  privileges  over  their  Christian 
competitors  in  Germany.  They  belong  to  a  regnum, 
but  also  to  a  regnum  in  regno.  They  have,  so  to 
say,  our  Sunday  and  likewise  their  Sabbath.  Jew 
will  always  help  Jew  against  a  Christian;  and  again 
who  can  blame  them  for  that?    All  one  can  say  is 


Childhood  at  Dessau  yi 

that  tliey  should  not  complain  of  their  unpopularity, 
but  take  into  account  the  risk  thej  are  running. 
No  one  hated  the  Jews  such  as  they  were  in  Dessau 
fifty  years  ago.  They  had  their  own  schools  and 
synagogues,  and  no  one  interfered  with  them  when 
they  built  their  bowers  in  the  streets  at  the  time 
of  their  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  and  lived,  feasted, 
and  slept  in  them  to  keep  up  the  memory  of  their 
sojourning  in  the  desert.  They  indulged  in  even 
more  offensive  practices,  such  as,  for  instance,  put- 
ting three  stones  in  the  coffins  to  be  thrown  by  the 
dead  at  the  Virgin  Mary,  her  husband,  and  their 
Son.  No  one  suspected  or  accused  them  of  kidnap- 
ping Christian  children,  or  offering  sacrifices  with 
their  blood.  They  were  known  too  well  for  that. 
Conversions  of  Jews  were  not  infrequent,  and  con- 
verted Jews  were  not  persecuted  by  their  former 
co-religionists  as  they  are  now.  Even  marriages 
between  Christians  and  Jews  were  by  no  means 
uncommon,  particularly  when  the  young  Jewesses 
were  beautiful  or  rich,  still  better  if  they  were  both. 
Disgraceful  as  the  Anti-Semitic  riots  have  been  in 
Germany  and  Russia,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
in  this  as  in  most  cases  both  sides  were  to  blame, 
and  there  is  little  prospect  of  peace  being  re-estab- 
lished till  manv  more  heads  have  been  broken. 

What  helped  very  much  to  keep  the  peace  in  the 
small  town  of  Dessau,  as  it  did  all  over  Germany, 
nay,  all  over  the  world,  till  about  the  year  1848, 
was  the  small  number  of  newspapers.    In  my  child- 


72  My  Autobiography 

hood  and  youth  their  nuinbcr  was  very  small.  In 
Dessau  I  only  knew  of  one,  which  was  then  called 
the  Wochenhlatt,  afterwards  the  Staafsanzeiger. 
At  that  time  newspapers  were  really  read  for  the 
news  which  they  contained,  not  for  leading  or  mis- 
leading articles  and  all  the  rest.  AVliat  a  happy 
time  it  was  when  a  newspaper  consisted  of  a  sheet, 
or  half  a  sheet  in  quarto,  with  short  paragraphs 
about  actual  events,  which  had  often  taken  place 
weeks  and  months  before.  A  battle  might  have 
been  fought  in  Spain  or  Turkey,  in  India  or 
China,  and  no  one  knew  of  it  till  some  official 
information  was  vouchsafed  by  the  respective 
Governments  or  by  Jewish  bankers.  War-corre- 
spondents or  regular  reporters  did  not  exist,  and 
the  old  telegraphic  dispatches  were  sent  by  wooden 
telegraphs  fixed  on  high  towers,  which  from  a  dis- 
tance looked  like  gallows  on  which  a  criminal  was 
hanging  and  gesticulating  wath  arms  and  feet. 
Anybody  who  watched  these  signals  could  decipher 
them  far  more  easily  than  a  hieroglyphic  inscription. 
The  peace  of  Europe,  nay,  of  the  w^hole  world, 
was  then  in  the  keeping  of  sovereigns  and  their 
ministers,  and  Prince  Metternich  might  certainly 
take  some  credit  for  having  kept  what  he  called  the 
Thirty  Years'  Peace.  Shall  we  ever,  as  long  as 
there  are  newspapers,  have  peace  again — peace  be- 
tween the  great  nations  of  the  world,  and  peace  at 
home  between  contending  parties,  and  peace  in  our 
mornings  at  home   which   are   now  so   ruthlessly 


Childhood  at  Dessau  73 

broken  in  upon,  nay,  swallowed  up  by  those  paper- 
giants,  most  unwelcome  yet  irresistible  callers,  just 
when  we  want  to  settle  down  to  a  quiet  day's  work? 
It  is  no  use  protesting  against  the  inevitable,  nor 
can  we  quite  agree  with  those  who  maintain  that  no 
newspaper  carries  the  slightest  weight  or  exercises 
the  smallest  influence  on  home  or  foreign  politics. 
A  very  influential  statesman  and  wise  thinker  used 
to  say  that  we  should  never  have  had  Christianity 
if  newspapers  had  existed  at  the  time  of  Augustus. 
When  unsuccessful  litterateurs  or  bankrupt  bank- 
ers' clerks  were  the  chief  contributors  to  the  news- 
papers, their  influence  might  have  been  small;  but 
when  Bismarcks  turned  journalists,  and  Gortcha- 
koffs  prompted,  newspapers  could  hardly  be  called 
quantites  negligeables. 

The  horizon  of  Dessau  was  very  narrow,  but 
within  its  bounds  there  was  a  busy  and  happy  life. 
Everybody  did  his  work  honestly  and  conscientious- 
ly. There  were,  of  course,  two  classes,  the  educated 
and  the  uneducated.  The  educated  consisted  of  the 
members  of  the  Government  service,  the  clergy,  the 
schoolmasters,  doctors,  artists,  and  officers;  the  un- 
educated were  the  tradesmen,  mechanics,  and 
labourers.  The  trade  was  mostly  in  the  hands  of 
Jews,  it  had  become  almost  a  Jewish  monopoly. 
When  one  of  these  tradesmen  went  bankrupt,  there 
was  a  commotion  over  the  whole  town,  and  I  re- 
member being  taken  to  see  one  of  these  bankrupt 
shops,  expecting  to  find  the  whole  house  broken  up 


74  My  Autobiography 

and  demolished,  and  being  surprised  to  see  the 
tradesman  standing  whole,  and  sound,  and  smiling, 
in  his  accustomed  place.  My  etymological  tastes 
must  have  developed  ver}'  early,  for  I  had  asked 
why  this  poor  Jew  was  called  a  bankrupt,  and  had 
been  duly  informed  that  it  was  because  his  bank 
had  been  broken,  banca  rotta,  which  of  course  I 
took  in  a  literal  sense,  and  expected  to  see  all  the 
furniture  broken  to  pieces.  The  commercial  rela- 
tions of  our  Dessau  tradesmen  did  not  extend  much 
beyond  Leipzig,  Berlin,  possibly  Hamburg  and 
Cologne.  If  a  burgher  of  Dessau  travelled  to  these 
or  to  more  distant  parts  the  whole  town  knew  of  it 
and  talked  about  it,  whereas  a  journey  to  Paris  or 
London  was  an  event  worthy  to  be  mentioned  and 
discussed  in  the  newspapers.  These  old  newspa- 
pers are  full  of  curious  information.  We  find  that 
if  a  person  wished  to  travel  to  Cologne  or  further, 
he  advertised  for  a  companion,  and  it  was  for  the 
Burgomaster  to  make  the  necessary  arrangements 
for  him. 

French  was  studied  and  spoken,  particularly  at 
Court,  but  English  was  a  rare  acquirement,  still 
more  Italian  or  Spanish.  There  was,  however,  a 
small  inner  circle  where  these  languages  were  stud- 
ied, chiefly  in  order  to  read  the  master-works  of 
modern  literature.  And  this  was  all  the  more  credit- 
able because  there  were  no  good  teachers  to  be  found 
at  Dessau,  and  people  had  to  learn  what  they  wished 
to  learn  by  themselves,  with  the  help  of  a  gram- 


Childhood  at  Dessau  75 

mar  and  dictionary.  We  learnt  French  at  school, 
hut  the  result  was  deplorable.  As  in  all  puhlic 
schools,  the  French  master  who  had  to  teach  the  lan- 
guage at  the  Ducal  Gymnasium  could  not  keep 
order  among  the  boys.  He  of  course  spoke  French, 
but  that  was  all.  He  did  not  know  how  to  teach, 
and  could  not  excite  any  interest  in  the  boys,  who 
insisted  on  pronouncing  French  as  if  it  were  Ger- 
man. The  poor  man's  life  was  made  a  burden  to 
him.  His  name  was  Noel,  and  he  had  all  the  pleas- 
ing manners  of  a  Frenchman,  but  that  served  only 
to  rouse  the  antagonism  of  the  young  barbarians. 
The  result  was  that  we  learnt  very  little,  and  I  was 
sent  to  an  old  Jew  to  learn  French  and  a  little  Eng- 
lish. That  old  Jew,  called  Levy  Rubens,  was  a 
perfect  gentleman.  He  probably  had  been  a  com- 
mercial traveller  in  his  early  days,  though  no  one 
knew  exactly  where  he  came  from  or  how  he  had 
learnt  languages.  He  had  taught  my  father  and 
grandfather  and  he  was  delighted  to  teach  the  third 
generation.  He  certainly  spoke  French  and  Eng- 
lish fluently,  but  with  the  strongest  Jewish  accent, 
and  this  was  inherited  by  all  his  pupils  at  Dessau. 
I  feel  ashamed  when  I  think  of  the  tricks  we  played 
the  old  man — putting  mice  into  his  pockets,  upset- 
ting inkstands  over  his  table,  and  placing  crackers 
under  his  chairs.  But  he  never  lost  his  temper;  he 
never  would  have  dared  to  punish  us  as  we  deserved; 
but  he  went  on  with  his  lesson  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened.    He  took  his  small  pay,  and  was  satisfied 


76  My  Autobiography 

when  his  lessons  were  over  and  he  could  settle  down 
to  his  long  pipe  and  his  books.  He  lived  quite  alone 
and  died  quite  alone,  a  hardworking,  honest,  poor 
Jew,  not  exactly  despised  or  persecuted,  but  not 
treated  with  the  respect  which  he  certainly  deserved, 
and  which  he  would  have  received  if  he  had  not 
been  a  Jew. 

Our  public  school  was  as  good  as  any  in  Germany. 
These  small  duchies  generally  followed  the  example 
of  Prussia,  and  they  carried  out  the  instructions 
issued  by  the  Ministry  of  Education  at  Berlin  ac- 
cording to  the  very  letter.  Besides,  several  of  the 
reigning  dukes  had  taken  a  very  warm  and  personal 
interest  in  popular  education,  and  at  the  beginning 
of  the  century  the  eyes  of  the  whole  of  Germany, 
nay,  of  Europe,  were  turned  towards  the  educational 
experiments  carried  on  by  my  great-grandfather, 
Basedow,^  at  the  so-called  Philanthropinum  at  Des- 
sau under  the  patronage  of  the  Duke  and  of  several 
of  the  more  enlightened  sovereigns  of  Europe,  such 
as  the  Empress  Catherine  of  Russia,  the  King  of 
Denmark,  the  Emperor  Joseph  of  Austria,  Prince 
Adam  Czartoryski,  &c.  Even  after  Basedow's 
death  the  interest  in  education  was  kept  alive  in 
Dessau,  and  all  was  done  that  could  be  done  in  so 
small  a  town  to  keep  the  different  schools — element- 
ary, middle-class,  and  high  schools — on  the  highest 
possible  level  of  efficiency. 

'  Johann  Bernhard  Basedow,  von  seinem  Urenkel,  F.  M.  M. 
(Essay 8,  Band  IV). 


Childhood  at  Dessau  jy 

Bathing  was  a  very  healthful  recreation,  though 
I  very  nearly  came  to  grief  from  trusting  to  my 
seniors.  They  could  swim  and  I  could  not  yet.  But 
while  hathing  with  two  of  my  friends  in  a  part  of 
the  river  which  was  safe,  they  swam  along  and  asked 
me  to  follow  them.  Having  complete  confidence 
in  them  I  jumped  in  from  the  shore,  hut  very  soon 
began  to  sink.  My  shouts  brought  my  friends  back, 
and  they  rescued  me,  not  without  some  difiiculty, 
from  drowning. 

In  an  English  school  the  influence  of  the  master 
is,  of  course,  more  constant,  because  one  of  the  mas- 
ters is  always  within  call,  while  in  Germany  he  is 
visible  during  school-hours  only.  If  a  master  is 
fond  of  his  pupils,  and  takes  an  interest  in  them 
individually,  he  can  do  them  more  good  than  parents 
at  home,  or  the  teacher  at  a  day  school.  The  boys 
at  a  German  school  are,  no  doubt,  a  very  mixed 
crew,  but  that  cannot  be  helped.  This  mixture  of 
classes  may  be  a  drawback  in  some  respects,  but 
from  an  educational  point  of  view  the  sons  of  very 
rich  parents  are  by  no  means  more  valuable  than  the 
poor  boys.  Far  from  it.  Many  of  the  evils  of 
schoolboy  life  come  from  the  sons  of  the  rich,  while 
the  sons  of  poor  parents  are  generally  well  behaved. 
But  for  all  that,  there  was  a  rough  and  rude  tone 
among  some  of  the  boys  at  school,  arising  from  de- 
fects in  the  education  at  home,  and  this  sometimes 
embittered  what  ought  to  be  the  happiest  time  of 
life,  particularly  in  the  case  of  delicate  boys.     The 


yS  My  Autobiography 

son  of  a  Minister  has  often  to  sit  ])y  the  side  of  the 
son  of  a  wealthy  butcher,  and  the  very  fact  that  he 
is  the  son  of  a  gentleman  often  exposes  the  more 
refined  boy  to  the  bullying  of  his  muscular  neigh- 
bour. I  was  fortunate  at  school.  I  could  hold  my 
own  with  the  boys,  and  as  to  the  masters,  several  of 
them  had  known  my  father  or  had  been  his  pupils, 
and  they  took  a  personal  interest  in  me. 

I  remember  more  particularly  one  young  master 
who  was  very  kind  to  me,  and  took  me  home  for 
private  lessons  and  for  giving  me  some  good  advice. 
There  was  something  sad  and  very  attractive  about 
him,  and  I  found  out  afterwards  that  he  knew  that 
he  was  dying  of  consumjjtion,  and  that  besides  that 
he  was  liable  to  be  prosecuted  for  political  liberal- 
ism, which  at  that  time  was  almost  like  high  trea- 
son. I  believe  he  was  actually  condemned  and  sent 
to  prison  like  many  others,  and  he  died  soon  after 
T  had  left  Dessau.  Ilis  name  was  Dr.  Honicke,  and 
he  was  the  first  to  try  to  impress  on  me  that  I  ought 
to  show  myself  worthy  of  my  father,  an  idea  which 
had  never  entered  my  mind  before,  nay,  which  at 
first  I  could  hardly  understand,  but  which,  never- 
theless, slumbered  on  in  my  mind  till  years  after- 
wards it  was  called  out  and  became  a  strong  influ- 
ence for  the  whole  of  my  life.  I  still  have  some 
lines  which  he  wrote  for  my  album.  They  were 
the  well-known  lines  from  Horace,  which,  at  the 
time,  I  had  great  difficulty  in  construing,  l)ut  which 
have  remained  graven  in  my  memory  ever  since: 


Childhood  at  Dessau  79 

"  Fortes  creantur  fortibus  et  bonis, 
Est  in  iuvencis  est  in  equis  patrum 
Virtus  nee  imbellem  feroces 

I*rogenerant  aquilae  columbam. 
Doctrina  sed  vim  promovet  iusitum, 
Rectique  cultus  peotora  roborant ; 
Utcunque  defecere  mores, 
Detieoonuit  bene  nata  culpae. " 

In  mj  childhood  I  had  to  pass  through  the  ordi- 
nary illnesses,  but  it  was  the  faith  in  our  doctor  that 
always  saved  me.  The  doctor  was  to  my  mind  the 
man  who  was  called  in  to  make  me  well  again,  and 
while  my  mother  was  agitated  about  her  only  son, 
I  never  dreamt  of  any  danger.  Tlie  very  idea  of 
death  never  came  near  me  till  my  grandfather  died 
(1835),  but  even  then  I  was  only  about  twelve  years 
old,  and  though  I  had  seen  much  of  him,  particular- 
ly during  the  years  that  my  mother  lived  again  in 
his  house,  yet  he  was  too  old  to  take  much  share  in 
his  grandchildren's  anmsements.  He  left  a  gap,  no 
doubt,  in  our  life,  but  that  gap  was  filled  again  with 
new  figures  in  the  life  of  a  boy  of  twelve.  He  was 
only  sixty-one  years  old  when  he  died,  and  yet  my 
idea  of  him  was  always  that  of  a  very  old  man. 
Everything  was  done  for  him,  his  servant  dressed 
him  every  morning,  he  was  lifted  into  his  carriage 
and  out  of  it,  and  he  certainlv  lived  the  life  of  an 
invalid,  such  as  I  should  not  consent  to  own  to  at 
seventy-six.  He  made  no  secret  that  he  cared  more 
for  the  son  of  his  son  who  was  the  heir,  and  was  to 
perpetuate  the  name  of  von  Basedow,  than  for  the  son 


8o  My  Autobiography 

of  his  daughter.  He  was  very  fond  of  driving  and 
of  shooting,  and  he  frequently  took  my  cousin  out 
shooting  mth  him.  When  my  cousin  came  home 
with  a  hare  he  had  shot,  I  confess  I  was  sometimes 
jealous,  but  I  was  soon  cured  of  my  wish  to  go  with 
my  grandfather  into  the  forest.  Once  when  I  was 
with  him  in  his  little  carriage,  my  grandfather,  not 
being  able  to  see  well,  had  the  misfortune  to  kill  a 
doe  which  had  come  out  with  her  two  little  ones. 
The  misery  of  the  mother  and  afterwards  of  her 
two  young  ones,  was  heart-rending,  and  from  that 
day  on  I  made  up  my  mind  never  to  go  out  shoot- 
ing, and  never  to  kill  an  animal.  And  I  have  kept 
my  word,  though  I  was  much  laughed  at.  It  may 
be  that  later  in  life  and  after  my  grandfather's  death 
I  had  little  opportunity  of  shooting,  but  the  cry  of 
the  doe  and  the  whimpering  of  the  young  ones  who 
tried  to  get  suck  from  their  dead  mother  have  re- 
mained with  me  for  life. 

My  grandfather,  though  he  aged  early,  remained 
in  harness  as  Prime  Minister  to  the  end  of  his  life, 
and  it  was  his  great  desire  to  benefit  his  country  by 
new  institutions.  It  was  he  who,  at  the  time  when 
people  hardly  knew  yet  what  railroads  meant,  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  the  line  from  Berlin  to  Halle 
and  Leipzig  to  pass  by  Dessau.  He  offered  to  build 
the  bridge  across  the  Elbe  and  to  give  the  land  and 
the  wood  for  the  sleepers  gratis,  and  what  seemed  at 
the  time  a  far  too  generous  offer  has  proved  a  bless- 
ing to  the  duchy,  making  it  as  it  were  the  centre 


/ 


Childhood  at  Dessau  81 

of  the  great  railway  connecting  Berlin,  Leipzig, 
Magdeburg,  the  Elbe,  Hanover,  Bremen,  nay, 
Cologne  also,  the  Rhine,  and  Western  Europe.  He 
was  in  his  way  a  good  statesman,  though  we  are  too 
apt  to  measure  a  man's  real  greatness  by  the  circum- 
stances in  which  he  moves. 

As  far  back  as  I  can  remember  I  was  a  martyr 
to  headaches.  No  doctor  could  help  me,  no  one 
seemed  to  know  the  cause.  It  was  a  migraine,  and 
though  I  watched  it  carefully  I  could  not  trace  it 
to  any  fault  of  mine.  The  idea  that  it  came  from 
overwork  was  certainly  untrue.  It  came  and  went, 
and  if  it  was  one  day  on  the  right  side  it  was  always 
the  next  time  on  the  left,  even  though  I  was  free 
from  it  sometimes  for  a  week  or  a  fortnight,  or 
even  longer.  It  was  strange  also  that  it  seldom 
lasted  beyond  one  day,  and  that  I  always  felt  par- 
ticularly strong  and  well  the  day  after  I  had  been 
prostrate.  For  prostrate  I  was,  and  generally  quite 
unable  to  do  anything.  I  had  to  lie  down  and  try 
to  sleep.  After  a  good  sleep  I  was  well,  but  when 
the  pain  had  been  very  bad  I  found  that  sometimes 
the  very  skin  of  my  forehead  had  peeled  off.  In 
this  way  I  often  lost  two  or  three  days  in  a  week, 
and  as  my  work  had  to  be  done  somehow,  it  was 
often  done  anyhow,  and  I  was  scolded  and  punished, 
really  without  any  fault  of  my  own.  After  all  reme- 
dies had  failed  which  the  doctor  and  nurses  pre- 
scribed (and  I  well  remember  my  grandmother  us- 
ing massage  on  my  neck,  which  must  have  been 


82  My  Autobiography 

about  1833  to  1835)  I  was  banded  over  to  Habne- 
mann,  tbe  founder  of  homeopathy.  Hahnemann 
(bom  1755)  had  been  practising  as  doctor  at  Des- 
sau as  early  as  1780 — that  is  somewhat  before  my 
time — but  had  left  it,  and  when  in  1820  he  had 
been  prohibited  by  the  Government  from  practising 
and  lecturing  at  Leipzig,  he  took  refuge  once  more 
in  the  neighbouring  town  of  Coethen.  From  there 
he  paid  visits  to  Dessau  as  consulting  physician,  and 
after  I  had  explained  to  him  as  well  as  I  could  all 
the  symptoms  of  my  chronic  headache,  he  assured 
my  mother  that  he  would  cure  it  at  once.  He  was 
an  imposing  personality — a  powerful  man  with  a 
gigantic  head  and  strong  eyes  and  a  most  persuasive 
voice.  I  can  quite  understand  that  his  personal  in- 
fluence would  have  gone  far  to  effect  a  cure  of  many 
diseases.  People  forget  too  much  how  strong  a  cura- 
tive power  resides  in  the  patient's  faith  in  his  doctor, 
in  fact  how  much  the  mind  can  do  in  depressing  and 
in  reinvigorating  the  body.  I  shall  never  forget 
in  later  years  consulting  Sir  Andrew  Clarke,  and 
telling  him  of  ever  so  many,  to  my  mind,  most  seri- 
ous symptoms,  I  had  lost  sleep  and  appetite,  and 
imagined  myself  in  a  very  bad  state  indeed.  He 
examined  me  and  knocked  me  about  for  full  three 
quarters  of  an  hour,  and  instead  of  pronouncing  my 
doom  as  I  fully  expected,  he  told  me  with  a  bright 
look  and  most  convincing  voice  that  he  had  ex- 
amined many  men  who  had  worked  their  brains  too 
much,  but  had  never  seen  a  man  at  my  time  of  life 


Childhood  at  Dessau  83 

so  perfectly  sound  in  every  organ.  I  felt  young  and 
strong  at  once,  and  meeting  my  old  friend  Morier 
on  my  way  home,  we  ate  some  dozens  of  oysters  to- 
gether and  drank  some  pints  of  porter  without  the 
slightest  bad  effect.  In  fact  I  was  cured  without  a 
pill  or  a  drop  of  medicine. 

And  who  does  not  know  how,  if  one  makes  up 
one's  mind  at  last  to  have  a  tooth  pulled  out,  the 
pain  seems  to  cease  as  soon  as  we  pull  the  bell  at 
the  dentist's? 

However,  Hahnemann  did  not  succeed  with  me. 
I  swallowed  a  number  of  his  silver  and  gold  glob- 
ules, but  the  migraine  kept  its  regular  course,  right 
to  left  and  left  to  right,  and  this  went  on  till  about 
the  year  1860.  Then  my  doctor,  the  late  Mr.  Sy- 
monds  of  Oxford,  told  me  exactly  what  Hahnemann 
had  told  me — that  he  would  cure  me,  if  I  would 
go  on  taking  some  medicine  regularly  for  six  months 
or  a  year.  He  told  me  that  he  and  his  brother  had 
made  a  special  study  of  headaches,  and  that  there 
were  ever  so  many  kinds  of  headache,  each  requiring 
its  own  peculiar  treatment.  Wlien  I  asked  him  to 
what  category  of  headaches  mine  belonged,  I  was 
not  a  little  abashed  on  being  told  that  my  headache 
was  what  they  called  the  Alderman's  headache. 
"  Surely,"  I  said,  "  I  don't  overeat,  or  overdrink." 
I  had  thought  that  mine  was  a  mysterious  nervous 
headache,  arising  from  the  brain.  But  no,  it  seemed 
to  be  due  to  turtle  soup  and  port  wine.  However, 
the  doctor,  seeing  my  surprise,  comforted  me  by 


84  My  Autobiography 

tt'lling  1110  that  it  was  the  nerves  of  the  head  which 
ntifec'ted  the  stoniaeli,  and  thus  produced  indirectly 
the  same  disturhance  in  my  digestion  as  an  alder- 
manic  diet.  AVhether  this  was  true  or  was  only 
meant  as  a  solatium  I  do  not  know.  But  what  I  do 
know  is,  that  by  taking  the  medicine  regularly  for 
about  half  a  year,  the  frequency  and  violence  of  my 
headaches  were  considerably  reduced,  while  after 
about  a  vear  thev  vanished  completely,  I  was  a  new 
being,  and  my  working  time  was  doubled. 

One  lesson  may  be  learnt  from  this,  namely,  that 
the  English  system  of  doctoring  is  very  imperfect. 
In  England  we  wait  till  we  are  ill,  then  go  to  a  doc- 
tor, describe  our  symptoms  as  well  as  we  can,  pay 
one  guinea,  or  two,  get  our  prescription,  take  drastic 
medicine  for  a  month  and  expect  to  be  well.  My 
German  doctor,  when  he  saw  the  prescription  of  my 
English  doctor,  told  me  that  he  would  not  give  it  to 
a  horse.  If  after  a  month  we  are  not  better  we  go 
again;  he  possibly  changes  our  medicine,  and  we 
take  it  more  or  less  regularly  for  another  month. 
The  doctor  cannot  watch  the  etfect  of  his  medicine, 
he  is  not  sure  even  whether  his  prescriptions  have 
been  carefully  followed ;  and  he  knows  but  too  well 
that  anything  like  a  chronic  complaint  requires  a 
chronic  treatment.  The  important  thing,  however, 
was  that  my  headaches  yielded  gradually  to  the 
continued  use  of  medicine;  it  would  hardly  have 
produced  the  desired  eifect  if  I  had  taken  it  by  fits 
and  starts.    All  this  seems  to  me  quite  natural ;  but 


Childhood  at  Dessau  85 

though  mj  Enghsh  doctor  cured  me,  and  my  Ger- 
man doctors  did  not,  I  still  hold  that  the  German 
system  is  hetter.  Most  families  have  their  doctor 
in  Germany,  who  calls  from  time  to  time  to  watch 
the  health  of  the  old  and  young  members  of  the 
family,  particularly  when  under  medical  treatment, 
and  receives  his  stipulated  annual  payment,  which 
secures  him  a  safe  income  that  can  be  raised,  of 
course,  by  attendance  on  occasional  patients.  Per- 
haps the  Chinese  system  is  the  best;  they  pay  their 
doctor  while  they  are  well,  and  stop  payment  as 
long  as  they  are  ill.  I  know  the  unanswerable  argu- 
ment which  is  always  thrown  at  my  head  whenever 
I  suggest  to  my  friends  that  there  are  some  things 
which  are  possibly  managed  better  in  Germany  than 
in  England.  If  my  remarks  refer  to  the  study  and 
practice  of  medicine  I  am  asked  whether  more  men 
are  killed  in  England  than  in  Germany;  if  I  refer 
to  the  study  and  practice  of  law  I  am  assured  that 
quite  as  many  murderers  are  hanged  in  England 
as  in  Gennany;  and  if  I  venture  to  hint  that  the 
study  of  theology  might  on  certain  points  be  im- 
proved at  Oxford,  I  am  told  that  quite  as  many 
souls  are  saved  in  England  as  in  Germany,  nay, 
a  good  many  more.  As  I  cannot  ascertain  the  facts 
from  trustworthy  statistics,  I  have  nothing  to  reply; 
all  I  feel  is  that  most  nations,  like  most  individuals, 
are  perfect  in  their  own  eyes,  but  that  those  are 
most  perfect  who  are  ^villing  to  admit  that  there  is 
something  to  be  learnt  from  their  neighbours. 


86  My  Autobiography 

But  to  return  to  Hahnemann.  He  was  very  kind 
to  me,  and  I  looked  up  to  him  as  a  giant  both  in 
body  and  in  mind.  But  he  could  not  deliver  me 
from  my  enemy,  the  ever  recurrent  migraine.  The 
cures,  however,  both  at  Dessau  and  at  Coethen, 
where  he  had  been  made  a  Hofrath  by  the  reigning 
Duke,  were  very  extraordinary.  Hahnemann  re- 
mained in  Coethen  till  1835,  and  in  that  year,  when 
he  was  eighty,  he  married  a  young  French  lady, 
Melanie  d'Hervilly,  and  was  carried  off  by  her  to 
Paris,  where  he  soon  gained  a  large  practice,  and 
died  in  1843,  that  is  at  the  age  of  eighty-eight. 
Much  of  his  success,  I  feel  sure,  was  due  to  his 
presence  and  to  the  confidence  which  he  inspired. 
How  do  I  know  that  Sir  Andrew  Clarke,  seeing 
that  I  was  in  low  spirits  about  my  health,  did  not 
think  it  right  to  encourage  me,  and  by  encouraging 
me  did  certainly  make  me  feel  confident  about  my- 
self, and  thus  raised  my  vitality,  my  spirits,  or 
whatever  we  like  to  call  it?  "  Thy  faith  hath  made 
thee  whole  "  is  a  lesson  which  doctors  ought  not 
to  neglect. 

How  little  we  know  the  effect  of  the  environment 
in  which  we  grow  up.  My  old  granny  has  drawn 
deeper  furrows  through  my  young  soul  than  all  my 
teachers  and  preachers  put  together.  I  am  not 
going  to  add  a  chapter  to  that  most  unsatisfactory 
of  all  studies,  child-psychology.  It  is  an  impossible 
subject.  The  victim — the  child — cannot  be  interro- 
gated till  it  is  too  late.     The  influences  that  work 


Childhood  at  Dessau  87 

on  the  child's  senses  and  mind  cannot  be  determined; 
they  are  too  many,  and  too  intangible.  The  ob- 
servers of  babies,  mostly  young  fathers  proud  of 
their  first  offspring,  remind  me  always  of  a  very 
learned  friend  of  mine,  who  presented  to  the  Royal 
Society  most  laborious  pages  containing  his  lifelong 
observations  on  certain  deviations  of  the  magnetic 
needle,  and  who  had  forgotten  that  in  making  these 
observations  he  always  had  a  pair  of  steel  spectacles 
on  his  nose.  However,  I  have  nothing  to  say  against 
these  observations,  nor  against  their  more  or  less 
successful  interpretations.  But  the  real  harm  be- 
gins when  people  imagine  that  in  studying  the  ways 
of  infants  they  can  discover  what  man  was  like  in 
his  original  condition,  whether  as  a  hairy  or  a  hair- 
less creature.  To  imagine  that  we  can  learn  from 
the  way  in  which  children  begin  to  use  our  old 
words,  how  the  primitive  language  of  mankind  was 
formed,  seems  to  me  like  imagining  that  children 
playing  with  counters  would  teach  us  how  and  for 
what  purpose  the  first  money  was  coined.  There 
is  no  doubt  a  grain  of  truth  in  this  infantile  psychol- 
ogy, but  it  requires  as  many  caveats  as  that  which 
is  called  ethnological  psychology,  which  makes  us 
see  in  the  savages  of  the  present  day  the  representa- 
tion of  the  first  ancestors  of  our  race,  and  would 
teach  us  to  discover  in  their  superstitions  the  ante- 
cedents of  the  mythology  and  religion  of  the  Aryan 
or  Semitic  races.  The  same  philosophers  who  con- 
stantly fall  back  on  heredity  and  atavism  in  order 


88  My  Autobiography 

to  explain  what  seems  inexplicable  in  the  beliefs 
and  customs  of  the  Brahmans,  Greeks,  or  Romans, 
seem  quite  unconscious  of  the  many  centuries  that 
must  needs  have  passed  over  the  heads  of  the 
Patagonians  of  the  present  day  as  well  as  of  the 
Greeks  at  the  time  of  Homer.  They  look  upon 
the  Patagonians  as  the  tabula  rasa  of  humanity, 
and  they  forget  that  even  if  we  admitted  that  the 
ancestors  of  the  Aryan  race  had  once  been  more 
savage  than  the  Patagonians,  it  would  not  follow 
that  their  savagery  was  identical  with  that  of  the 
people  of  Tierra  del  Fuego.  Why  should  not  the 
distance  between  Patagonian  and  Vedic  Eishis  have 
been  at  least  as  great  as  that  between  Vedic  Eishis 
and  Homeric  bards?  If  there  are  ever  so  many 
kinds  of  civilized  life,  was  there  only  one  and  the 
same  savagery  ? 

To  take,  for  instance,  the  feeling  of  fear;  is  it 
likely  that  we  shall  find  out  whether  it  is  innate  in 
human  nature  or  acquired  and  intensified  in  each 
generation,  by  shaking  our  fists  in  the  face  of  a 
little  baby,  to  see  whether  it  will  wink  or  shrink  or 
shriek?  Some  children  may  be  more  fearless  than 
others,  but  whether  that  fearlessness  arises  from 
ignorance  or  from  stolidity  is  again  by  no  means 
easy  to  determine.  A  burnt  child  fears  the  fire, 
an  unbumt  child  might  boldly  grasp  a  glowing 
coal,  but  all  this  would  not  help  us  to  determine 
whether  fear  is  an  innate  or  an  acquired  tendency 
or  habit. 


Childhood  at  Dessau  89 

All  I  can  say  for  myself  is  that  my  young  life 
and  even  my  later  years  were  often  rendered  mis- 
erable by  the  foolish  stories  of  one  of  my  grand- 
mothers, and  that  I  had  to  make  a  strong  effort  of 
will  before  I  could  bring  myseK  to  walk  across  a 
churchyard  in  the  dark.  This  shows  how  much  ouf 
character  is  shaped  by  circumstances,  even  when 
we  are  least  aware  of  it.  I  did  not  believe  in  ghosts 
and  I  was  not  a  coward,  but  I  felt  through  life  a 
kind  of  shiver  in  dark  passages  and  at  the  sound  of 
mysterious  noises,  and  the  mere  fact  that  I  had 
to  make  an  effort  to  overcome  these  feelings  shows 
that  something  had  found  its  way  into  my  mental 
constitution  that  ought  never  to  have  been  there, 
and  that  caused  me,  particularly  in  my  younger 
days,  many  a  moment  of  discomfort. 

All  such  experiences  constitute  what  may  be 
called  the  background  of  our  life.  My  first  ideas 
of  men  and  women,  and  of  the  world  at  large,  that 
is  of  the  unknown  world,  were  formed  within  the 
narrow  walls  of  Dessau,  for  Dessau  was  still  sur- 
rounded by  walls,  and  the  gates  of  the  city  were 
closed  every  night,  though  the  fears  of  a  foreign 
enemy  were  but  small.  Of  course  the  views  of  life 
prevailing  at  Dessau  were  very  narrow,  but  they 
were  wide  enough  for  our  purposes.  Though  we 
heard  of  large  towns  like  Dresden  or  Berlin,  and 
of  large  countries  like  France  and  Italy,  my  real 
world  was  Dessau  and  its  neighbourhood.  We  had 
no  interests  outside  the  walls  of  our  town  or  the 


Qo  My  Autobiography 

frontiers  of  our  duchy.  If  we  heard  of  things  that 
had  happened  at  Leipzig  or  Berlin,  in  Paris  or  Lon- 
don, they  had  no  more  reality  for  us  than  what  we 
had  read  about  Abraham,  or  Romulus  and  Remus, 
or  Alexander  the  Great.  To  us  the  pulse  of  the 
world  seemed  to  beat  in  the  Ilaupt-  und  Residenz- 
stadt  of  Dessau,  though  we  knew  perfectly  well 
how  small  it  was  in  comparison  with  other  towns. 

And  this,  too,  has  left  its  impression  on  my 
thoughts  all  through  life,  if  only  by  making  every- 
thing that  I  saw  in  later  life  in  such  to\\'ns  as  Leip- 
zig, Berlin,  Paris,  and  London,  appear  quite  over- 
whelmingly grand.  Boys  brought  up  in  any  of 
these  large  towns  start  with  a  different  view  of  the 
world,  and  with  a  different  measure  for  what  they 
see  in  later  life.  I  do  not  know  that  they  are  to  be 
envied  for  that,  for  there  is  pleasure  in  admiration, 
pleasure  even  in  being  stunned  by  the  first  sight  of 
the  life  in  the  streets  of  Paris  or  London.  I  cer- 
tainly have  been  a  great  admirer  all  my  life,  and 
I  ascribe  this  disposition  to  the  small  surroundings 
of  my  early  years  at  Dessau. 

And  so  it  was  with  everything  else.  Having  ad- 
mired our  Cavalicr-Strasse,  I  could  admire  all  the 
more  the  Boulevards  in  Paris,  and  Regent  Street 
in  London.  Having  enjoyed  our  small  theatre,  I 
stood  aghast  at  the  Grand  Opera,  and  at  Drury 
Lane.  This  power  of  admiration  and  enjoyment 
extended  even  to  dinners  and  other  domestic  amuse- 
ments.    Having  been  brought  up  on  very  simple 


Childhood  at  Dessau 


91 


fare,  I  fully  enjoyed  the  dinners  which  the  Old  East 
India  Company  gave,  when  we  sat  down  about 
400  people,  and,  as  I  was  told,  four  pounds  was  paid 
for  each  guest.  I  mention  this  because  I  feel  that 
not  only  has  the  Spartan  diet  of  my  early  years 
given  me  a  relish  all  through  life  for  convivial  en- 
tertainments, even  if  not  quite  at  four  pounds  a 
head,  but  that  the  general  self-denial  which  I  had 
to  exercise  in  my  youth  has  made  me  feel  a  constant 
gratitude  and  sincere  appreciation  for  the  small 
comforts  of  my  later  years. 

I  remember  the  time  when  I  woke  with  my 
breath  frozen  on  my  bedclothes  into  a  thin  sheet  of 
ice.  We  were  expected  to  wash  and  dress  in  an 
attic  where  the  windows  were  so  thickly  frozen  as 
to  admit  hardly  any  light  in  the  morning,  and 
where,  when  we  tried  to  break  the  ice  in  the  jug, 
there  were  only  a  few  drops  of  water  left  at  the  bot- 
tom with  which  to  wash.  No  wonder  that  the  ab- 
lutions were  expeditious.  After  they  were  per- 
formed we  had  our  speedy  breakfast,  consisting  of 
a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  semmel  or  roll,  and  then  we 
rushed  to  school,  often  through  the  snow  that  had 
not  yet  been  swept  away  from  the  pavement.  We 
sat  in  school  from  eight  to  eleven  or  twelve,  rushed 
home  again,  had  our  very  simple  dinner,  and  then 
back  to  school,  from  two  to  four.  How  we  lived 
through  it  I  sometimes  wonder,  for  we  were  thinly 
clad  and  often  wet  with  rain  or  snow;  and  yet  we 
enjoyed  our  life  as  boys  only  can  enjoy  it,  and  had 


92  My  Autobiography 

no  time  to  be  ill.  One  blessing  this  early  roughing 
has  left  me  for  life — a  power  of  enjoying  many 
things  which  to  most  of  my  friends  are  matters  of 
course  or  of  no  consequence.  The  background  of 
my  life  at  Dessau  and  at  Leipzig  may  seem  dark, 
but  it  has  only  served  to  make  the  later  years  of  my 
life  all  the  brighter  and  warmer. 

The  more  I  think  about  that  distant,  now  very 
distant  past,  the  more  I  feel  how,  without  being 
aware  of  it,  my  whole  character  was  formed  by  it. 
The  unspoiled  primitiveness  of  life  at  Dessau  as  it 
was  when  I  was  at  school  there  till  the  age  of  twelve, 
would  be  extremely  difficult  to  describe  in  all  its 
details.  Everybody  seemed  to  know  everybody  and 
everything  about  everybody.  Everybody  knew 
that  he  was  w^atched,  and  gossip,  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word,  ruled  supreme  in  the  little  town.  Gossip 
was,  in  fact,  public  opinion  with  all  its  good  and  all 
its  bad  features.  Still  the  result  was  that  no  one 
could  afford  to  lose  caste,  and  that  everybody  be- 
haved as  well  as  he  could.  I  really  believe  that  the 
private  life  of  the  people  of  Dessau  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century  was  blameless.  The  great  evils 
of  society  did  not  exist,  and  if  now  and  then  there 
was  a  black  sheep,  his  or  her  life  became  a  burden 
to  them.  Everybody  knew  what  had  happened,  and 
society  being  on  the  whole  so  blameless,  was  all  the 
more  merciless  on  the  sinners,  whether  their  sins 
were  great  or  small.  So  from  the  very  first  my  idea 
■was  that  there  were  only  two  classes — one  class  quite 


Childhood  at  Dessau  93 

perfect  and  pure  as  angels,  the  other  black  sheep, 
and  altogether  unspeakable.  There  was  no  transi- 
tion, no  intermediate  links,  no  shading  of  light  and 
dark.  A  man  was  either  black  or  white,  and  this 
rigid  rule  applied  not  only  to  moral  character,  but 
intellectual  excellence  also  was  measured  by  the 
same  standard.  A  work  of  art  was  either  superla- 
tively beautiful,  or  it  was  contemptible.  A  man  of 
science  was  either  a  giant  or  a  humbug.  Some 
people  spoke  of  Goethe  as  the  greatest  of  all  poets 
and  philosophers  the  world  had  ever  known ;  others 
called  him  a  wicked  man  and  an  overvalued 
poet.^ 

It  is  dangerous,  no  doubt,  to  go  through  life  with 
so  imperfect  a  measure,  and  I  have  for  a  long  time 
suffered  from  it,  particularly  in  cases  where  I  ought 
to  have  been  able  to  make  allowance  for  small  fail- 
ings. But  as  I  had  been  brought  up  to  approach 
people  with  a  complete  trust  in  their  rectitude,  and 
with  an  unlimited  admiration  of  their  genius,  it 
took  me  many  years  before  I  learnt  to  make  allow- 
ance for  human  weaknesses  or  temporary  failures. 
I  have  lost  many  a  charming  companion  and  excel- 
lent friend  in  my  journey  through  life,  because  I 
weighed  them  with  my  rusty  Dessau  balance.  I 
had  to  learn  by  long  experience  that  there  may  be 
a  spot,  nay,  several  spots  on  the  soft  skin  of  a  peach, 

•  That  this  was  not  only  the  case  at  Dessau,  may  be  seen  by 
a  number  of  contemporary  reviews  of  Goethe's  works  repub- 
lished some  years  ago  and  the  exact  title  of  which  I  cannot  find. 


94  My  Autobiography 

and  yet  the  whole  fruit  may  be  perfect.  I  acted 
very  much  like  the  merchant  who  tested  a  whole 
field  of  rice  by  the  first  handful  of  grains,  and  who, 
if  he  found  one  or  two  bad  grains,  would  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  whole  field.  I  had  to  learn  what 
was,  perhaps,  the  most  difficult  lesson  of  all,  that  a 
trusted  friend  could  not  always  be  trusted,  and  yet 
need  not  therefore  be  altogether  a  reprobate.  What 
was  most  difficult  for  me  to  digest  was  an  untruth: 
finding  out  that  one  who  professed  to  be  a  friend 
had  said  and  done  most  unfriendly  things  behind 
one's  back.  Still,  in  a  long  life  one  finds  out  that 
even  that  may  not  be  a  deadly  sin,  and  that  if  we 
are  so  loth  to  forgive  it,  it  is  partly  because  the  false- 
hood affected  our  own  interests.  Thus  only  can  we 
explain  how  a  man  whom  we  know  to  have  been 
guilty  of  falsehoods  towards  ourselves  may  be  looked 
upon  as  perfectly  honest,  straightforward,  and  trust- 
worthy, by  a  large  number  of  his  own  friends.  We 
see  this  over  and  over  again  with  men  occupying 
eminent  positions  in  Church  and  State.  We  see 
how  a  prime  minister  or  an  archbishop  is  represent- 
ed by  men  who  know  him  as  a  liar  and  a  hypocrite, 
while  by  others  he  is  spoken  of  as  a  paragon  of  hon- 
our and  honesty,  and  a  true  Christian.  My  narrow 
Dessau  views  became  a  little  widened  when  I  went 
to  school  at  Leipzig;  still  more  when  I  spent  two 
years  and  a  half  at  the  University  of  Leipzig,  and 
afterwards  at  Berlin.  Still,  during  all  this  time  I 
saw  but  little  of  what  is  called  society,  I  only  knew 


Childhood  at  Dessau  g^ 

of  people  whom  I  loved  and  of  people  whom  I  dis- 
liked. There  was  no  room  as  yet  for  indiflferent 
people,  whom  one  tolerates  and  is  civil  to  without 
caring  whether  one  sees  them  again  or  not.  Of  the 
simplest  duties  of  society  also  I  was  completely  igno- 
rant. No  one  ever  told  me  what  to  say  and  what  to 
do,  or  what  not  to  say  and  what  not  to  do.  What  I 
felt  I  said,  what  I  thought  right  I  did.  There  was,  in 
fact,  in  my  small  native  town  very  little  that  could  be 
called  society.  One  lived  in  one's  family  and  with 
one's  intimate  friends  without  any  ceremony.  It 
is  a  pity  that  children  are  not  taught  a  few  rules 
of  life-wisdom  by  their  seniors.  I  know  that  the 
Jews  do  not  neglect  that  duty,  and  I  remember  be- 
ing surprised  at  my  young  Jewish  friends  at  Dessau 
coming  out  with  some  very  wise  saws  which  evi- 
dently had  not  been  grown  in  their  own  hot-houses, 
but  had  been  planted  out  full  grown  by  their  seniors. 
The  only  rules  of  worldly  wisdom  which  I  remem- 
ber, came  to  me  through  proverbs  and  little  verses 
which  we  had  either  to  copy  or  to  learn  by  heart, 
such  as: 

"  Wer  einmal  Ulgt,  dem  glaubt  man  nicht 
Und  wenn  er  auch  die  Wahrheit  spricht." 

•'  Morgenstunde  hat  Gold  im  Munde." 

•'  Kein  Faden  ist  so  fein  gesponnen, 
Er  komiut  doch  endlich  an  die  Sonnen." 

"  Jeder  ist  eeines  Gltlckes  Schmled. " 


96  My  Autobiography 

Some  lines  which  hung  over  my  bed  I  have  carried 
with  me  all  through  life,  and  I  still  think  they  are 
very  true  and  very  terse : 

"  Im  GlUck  nicht  jubeln  und  im  Sturm  nicht  zagen, 
Das  Unvermeidliche  mit  Wtlrde  tragen, 
Das  Rechte  thun,  am  SchOnen  sich  erfreuen, 
Das  Leben  lieben  und  den  Tod  nicht  scheuen, 
Und  fest  an  Gott  und  bessere  Zukunft  glauben, 
Heisst  leben,  heisst  dem  Tod  sein  Bitteres  rauben." 

Still,  all  this  formed  a  very  small  viaticum  for  a 
journey  through  life,  and  I  often  thought  that  a  few 
more  hints  might  have  preserved  me  from  the  pain- 
ful process  of  what  was  called  rubbing  off  one's 
horns.  Again  and  again  I  had  to  say  to  myself, 
"  That  would  have  done  very  well  at  home,  but 
it  was  a  mistake  for  all  that."  My  social  rawness 
and  simplicity  stuck  to  me  for  many  years,  just  as 
the  Dessau  dialect  remained  with  me  for  life;  at 
least  I  was  assured  by  my  friends  that  though  I 
had  spoken  French  and  English  for  so  many  years, 
they  could  always  detect  in  my  German  that  I  came 
from  Dessau  or  Leipzig. 


CHAPTER  III 

SCHOOL-DAYS  AT  LEIPZIG 

It  was  certainly  a  poor  kind  of  armour  in  wliich. 
I  set  out  from  Dessau.  My  mother,  devoted  as  slie 
was  to  me,  had  judged  rightly  that  it  was  best 
for  me  to  be  with  other  boys  and  under  the  super- 
vision of  a  man.  I  had  been  somewhat  spoiled  by 
her  passionate  love,  and  also  by  her  passionate  se- 
verity in  correcting  the  ordinary  naughtinesses  of 
a  boy.  So  having  risen  from  form  to  form  in  the 
school  at  Dessau,  I  was  sent,  at  the  age  of  twelve, 
to  Leipzig,  to  live  in  the  house  of  Professor  Carus 
and  attend  the  famous  Xicolai-Schule  with  his 
son,  who  was  of  the  same  age  as  myself  and  who 
likewise  wanted  a  companion.  It  was  thought 
that  there  would  be  a  certain  emulation  between 
us,  and  so,  no  doubt,  there  was,  though  we 
always  remained  the  best  of  friends.  The  house 
in  which  we  lived  stood  in  a  garden  and  was  really 
an  orthopaedic  institution  for  girls.  There  were 
about  twenty  or  thirty  of  these  young  girls  living 
in  the  house  or  spending  the  day  there,  and  their 
joyous  company  was  very  pleasant.  Of  course  the 
names  and  faces  of  my  young  friends  have,  with 
one  or  two  exceptions,  vanished  from  my  memory, 

97 


98  My  Autobiography 

but  I  was  surprised  when  a  few  years  ago  (1895)  I 
was  stajdng  with  Madame  Salis-Schwabe  at  her  de- 
lightful place  on  the  Menai  Straits,  and  discovered 
that  we  had  known  each  other  more  than  fifty  years 
before  in  the  house  of  Professor  Carus  at  Leipzig. 
Though  we  had  met  from  time  to  time,  we  never 
knew  of  our  early  meeting  at  Leipzig,  till  in  com- 
paring notes  we  discovered  how  we  had  spent  a 
whole  year  in  the  same  house  and  among  the  same 
friends.  Hers  has  been  a  life  full  of  work  and 
entirely  devoted  to  others.  To  the  very  end  of  her 
days  she  was  spending  her  large  income  in  found- 
ing schools  on  the  system  recommended  by  Froebel, 
not  only  in  England,  but  in  Italy.  She  died  at 
Naples  in  1896,  while  visiting  a  large  school  that 
had  been  founded  by  her  with  the  assistance  of  the 
Italian  Government.  Her  own  house  in  Wales  was 
full  of  treasures  of  art,  and  full  of  memorials  of 
her  many  friends,  such  as  Bunsen,  Eenan,  Mole, 
Ary  Scheffer,  and  many  more.  How  far  her  char- 
ity went  may  be  judged  by  her  being  willing  to 
part  with  some  of  the  most  precious  of  Ary  Scheff- 
er's  pictures,  in  order  to  keep  her  schools  well  en- 
dowed, and  able  to  last  after  her  death,  which  she 
felt  to  be  imminent. 

Public  schools  are  nearly  all  day  schools  in  Ger- 
many. The  boys  live  at  home,  mostly  in  their  own 
families,  but  they  spend  six  hours  every  day  at 
school,  and  it  is  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  they  are 
not  attached  to  it,  that  they  have  no  games  to- 


School-Days  at  Leipzig  gg 

gether,  and  that  they  do  not  grow  up  manly  or  in- 
dependent. Most  schools  have  playgrounds,  and  in 
summer  swimming  is  a  favourite  amusement  for 
all  the  boys.  There  were  two  good  public  schools 
at  Leipzig,  the  Nicolai  School  and  the  Thomas 
School.  There  was  plenty  of  esprit  de  corps  in 
them,  and  often  when  the  boys  met  it  showed  it- 
self not  only  in  words  but  in  blows,  and  the  dis- 
cussions over  the  merits  of  their  schools  were  often 
continued  in  later  life.  I  was  very  fortunate  in 
being  sent  to  the  Nicolai  School,  under  Dr.  Kobbe 
as  head  master.  He  was  at  the  same  time  Professor 
at  the  University  of  Leipzig,  and  is  well  known  in 
England  also  as  the  editor  of  Cicero.  He  was  very 
proud  that  his  school  counted  Leibniz  ^  among  its 
former  pupils.  He  was  a  classical  scholar  of  the 
old  school.  During  the  last  three  years  of  our 
school  life  we  had  to  write  plenty  of  Latin  and 
Greek  verse,  and  were  taught  to  speak  Latin.  The 
speaking  of  Latin  came  readily  enough,  but  the 
verses  never  attained  a  very  high  level.  Besides 
Xobbe  we  had  Forbiger,  well  known  by  his  books 
on  ancient  geography,  and  Palm,  editor  of  the  same 
Greek  Dictionary  which,  in  the  hands  of  Dr.  Lid- 
dell,  has  reached  its  highest  perfection.  Then  there 
was  Funkhanel,  known  beyond  Germany  by  his 
edition  of  the  Orations  of  Demosthenes,  and  his 
studies  on  Greek  orators.  We  were  indeed  well  off 
for  masters,  and  most  of  them  seemed  to  enjoy  their 
>  His  own  spelling  of  his  name. 


100  My  Autobiography- 

work  and  to  be  fond  of  the  bovs.  Our  head  master 
was  very  popular.  He  was  a  man  of  the  old  Ger- 
man type,  powerfully  built,  with  a  large  square 
head,  very  much  like  Luther,  and,  strange  to  say, 
when  in  1839  a  great  Luther  festival  was  celebrated 
all  over  Germany,  he  published  a  book  in  which 
he  proved  that  he  was  a  direct  descendant  of  Luther. 
The  school  was  carried  on  very  much  on  the  old 
plan  of  teaching  chiefly  classics,  but  teaching  them 
thoroughly.  Modern  languages,  mathematics,  and 
physical  science  had  a  poor  chance,  though  they 
clamoured  for  recognition.  Latin  and  Greek  verse 
were  considered  far  more  important.  In  the  two 
highest  forms  we  had  to  speak  Latin,  and  such  as 
it  was  it  seemed  to  us  much  easier  than  to  speak 
French.  Hebrew  was  also  taught  as  an  optional 
subject  during  the  last  four  years,  and  the  little  I 
know  of  Hebrew  dates  chiefly  from  my  school-days. 
Schoolboys  soon  find  out  what  their  masters  think 
of  the  value  of  the  different  subjects  taught  at 
school,  and  they  are  apt  to  treat  not  only  the  sub- 
jects themselves  but  the  teachers  also  according 
to  that  standard.  Hence  our  modern  language  and 
our  physical  science  masters  had  a  hard  time  of  it. 
They  could  not  keep  their  classes  in  order,  and  it 
was  by  no  means  unusual  for  many  of  the  boys 
simply  to  stay  away  from  their  lessons.  The  old 
mathematical  master,  before  beginning  his  lesson, 
used  to  rub  his  spectacles,  and  after  looking  round 
the  half  empty  classroom,  mutter  in  a  plaintive 


School-Days  at  Leipzig  loi 

voice :  "  I  see  again  many  boys  who  are  not  here 
to-day."  When  the  same  old  master  began  to  lect- 
ure on  physical  science,  he  told  the  boys  to  bring 
a  frog  to  be  placed  under  a  glass  from  which  the 
air  had  been  extracted  by  an  air-pump.  Of  course 
every  one  of  the  twenty  or  thirty  boys  brought 
two  or  three  frogs,  and  when  the  experiment  was 
to  be  made  all  these  frogs  were  hopping  about  the 
lecture-room,  and  the  whole  army  of  boys  were  hop- 
ping after  them  over  chairs  and  tables  to  catch 
them.  No  wonder  that  during  this  tumult  the  mas- 
ter did  not  succeed  with  his  experiment,  and  when 
at  last  the  glass  bowl  was  lifted  up  and  we  were 
asked  to  see  the  frog,  great  was  the  joy  of  all  the 
boys  when  the  frog  hopped  out  and  escaped  from 
the  hands  of  its  executioner.  Such  was  the  wrath 
excited  by  these  new-fangled  lectures  among  the 
boys  that  they  actually  committed  the  vandalism  of 
using  one  of  the  forms  as  a  battering-ram  against 
the  enclosure  in  which  the  physical  science  appara- 
tus was  kept,  and  destroyed  some  of  the  precious 
instruments  supplied  by  Government.  Severe  pun- 
ishments followed,  but  they  did  not  serve  to  make 
physical  science  more  popular. 

We  certainly  did  very  well  in  Greek  and  Latin, 
and  read  a  number  of  classical  texts,  not  only  criti- 
cally at  school,  but  also  cursorily  at  home,  having  to 
give  a  weekly  account  of  what  we  had  thus  read 
by  ourselves.  I  liked  my  classics,  and  yet  I  could 
not  help  feeling  that  there  was  a  certain  exaggera- 


102  My  Autobiography 

tion  in  the  way  in  which  every  one  of  them  was 
spoken  of  by  our  teachers,  nay,  that  as  compared  to 
German  poets  and  prose  writers  they  were  somewhat 
overpraised.  Still,  it  would  have  been  very  conceit- 
ed not  to  admire  what  our  masters  admired,  and 
as  in  duty  bound  we  went  into  the  usual  raptures 
about  Homer  and  Sophocles,  about  Horace  and 
Cicero.  Many  things  which  in  later  life  we  learn 
to  admire  in  the  classics  could  hardly  appeal  to  the 
taste  of  boys.  The  directness,  the  simplicity  and 
originality  of  the  ancient,  as  compared  with  modern 
writers,  cannot  be  appreciated  by  them,  and  I  well 
remember  being  struck  with  what  we  disrespect- 
ful boys  called  the  cheekiness  of  Horace  expecting 
immortality  (non  omnis  moriar)  for  little  poems 
which  we  were  told  were  chiefly  written  after  Greek 
patterns.  We  had  to  admit  that  there  were  fewer 
false  quantities  in  his  Latin  verses  than  in  our  own, 
but  in  other  respects  we  could  not  see  that  his  odes 
were  so  infinitely  superior  to  ours.  His  hope  of 
immortality  has  certainly  been  fulfilled  beyond 
what  could  have  been  his  own  expectations.  With 
so  little  of  ancient  history  known  to  him,  his  idea 
of  the  immortality  of  poetry  must  have  been  far 
more  modest  in  his  time  than  in  our  own.  He  may 
have  known  the  past  glories  of  the  Persian  Empire, 
but  as  to  ancient  literature,  there  was  nothing  for 
him  to  know,  whether  in  Persia,  in  Babylonia,  in 
Assyria,  or  even  in  Egypt,  least  of  all  in  India. 
Literary  fame  existed  for  him  in  Greece  only,  and 


School-Days  at  Leipzig  103 

in  the  Roman  Empire,  and  his  own  ambition  could 
therefore  hardly  have  extended  beyond  these  limits. 
The  exaggeration  in  the  panegyrics  passed  on  every- 
thing Greek  or  Latin  dates  from  the  classical 
scholars  of  the  Middle  Ages,  who  knew  nothing 
that  could  be  compared  to  the  classics,  and  who 
were  loud  in  praising  what  they  possessed  the 
monopoly  of  selling.  Successive  generations  of 
scholars  followed  suit,  so  that  even  in  our  time  it 
seemed  high  treason  to  compare  Goethe  with 
Horace,  or  Schiller  with  Sophocles.  Of  late,  how- 
ever, the  danger  is  rather  that  the  reaction  should 
go  too  far  and  lead  to  a  promiscuous  depreciation 
even  of  such  real  giants  as  Lucretius  or  Plato.  The 
fact  is  that  we  have  learnt  from  them  and  imitated 
them,  till  in  some  cases  the  imitations  have  equalled 
or  even  excelled  the  originals,  while  now  the  taste 
for  classical  correctness  has  been  wellnigh  sup- 
planted by  an  appetite  for  what  is  called  realistic, 
original,  and  extravagant. 

With  all  that  has  been  said  or  written  against 
making  classical  studies  the  most  important  ele- 
ment in  a  liberal  education,  or  rather  against  re- 
taining them  in  their  time-honoured  position,  noth- 
ing has  as  yet  been  suggested  to  take  their  place. 
For  after  all,  it  is  not  simply  in  order  to  learn  two 
languages  that  we  devote  so  large  a  share  of  our 
time  to  the  study  of  Greek  and  Latin ;  it  is  in  order 
to  learn  to  understand  the  old  world  on  which  our 
modern  world  is  founded;    it  is  in  order  to  think 


104  My  Autobiography 

the  old  thoughts,  Avhich  are  the  feeders  of  our  own 
intellectual  life,  that  we  become  in  our  youth  the 
pupils  of  Greeks  and  Romans.  In  order  to  know 
what  we  are,  we  have  to  learn  how  we  have  come 
to  be  what  we  are.  Our  very  languages  form  an 
unbroken  chain  between  us  and  Cicero  and  Aris- 
totle, and  in  order  to  use  many  of  our  words  intelli- 
gently, we  must  know  the  soil  from  which  they 
sprang,  and  the  atmosphere  in  which  they  grew  up 
and  developed. 

I  enjoyed  my  work  at  school  very  much,  and 
I  seem  to  have  passed  rapidly  from  class  to  class. 
I  frequently  received  prizes  both  in  money  and  in 
books,  but  I  see  a  warning  attached  to  some  of  them 
that  I  ought  not  to  be  conceited,  which  probably 
meant  no  more  than  that  I  should  not  show  when  I 
was  pleased  with  my  successes.  At  least  I  do  not 
know  what  I  could  have  been  conceited  about. 
What  I  feel  about  my  learning  at  school  is  that  it 
was  entirely  passive.  I  acquired  knowledge  such 
as  it  was  presented  to  me.  I  did  not  doubt  what- 
ever my  teachers  taught  me,  I  did  not,  as  far  as  I 
can  recollect,  work  up  any  subject  by  myself.  I 
find  only  one  paper  of  mine  of  that  early  time,  and, 
curiously  enough,  it  was  on  mythology;  but  it  con- 
tains no  inkling  of  comparative  mythology,  but 
simply  a  chronological  arrangement  of  the  sources 
from  which  we  draw  our  knowledge  of  Greek  my- 
thology. I  see  also  from  some  old  papers,  that  I 
began  to  write  poetry,  and  that  twice  or  thrice  I 


School-Days  at  Leipzig  105 

was  chosen  at  great  festivities  to  recite  poems  writ- 
ten by  myself.  In  the  year  1839  three  hundred 
years  had  passed  since  Luther  preached  at  Leipzig 
in  the  Church  of  St.  Nicolai,  and  the  tercentenary 
of  this  event  was  celebrated  all  over  Germany.  My 
poem  was  selected  for  recitation  at  a  large  meeting 
of  the  friends  of  our  school  and  the  notables  of  the 
town,  and  I  had  to  recite  it,  not  without  fear  and 
trembling.    I  was  then  but  sixteen  years  of  age. 

In  the  next  year,  1840,  Leipzig  celebrated  the 
invention  of  printing  in  1440.  It  was  on  this  oc- 
casion that  Mendelssohn  wrote  his  famous  Hymn 
of  Praise.  I  formed  part  of  the  chorus,  and  I  well 
remember  the  magnificent  effect  which  the  music 
produced  in  the  Church  of  St.  Thomas.  Again  a 
poem  of  mine  was  selected,  and  I  had  to  recite  it 
at  a  large  gathering  in  the  Nicolai-Schule  on  July 
18,  1840. 

On  December  23  another  celebration  took  place 
at  our  school,  at  which  I  had  to  recite  a  Latin  poem 
of  mine.  In  Scliillerum.  Lastly,  there  was  my 
valedictory  poem  when  I  left  the  school  in  1841, 
and  a  Latin  poem  ''  Ad  I^obbium,"  our  head  master. 

I  have  found  among  my  mother's  treasures  the 
far  too  often  flattering  testimonial  addressed  to  her 
by  Professor  Nobbe  on  that  occasion,  which  ends 
thus:  "I  rejoice  at  seeing  him  leave  this  school 
with  testimonials  of  moral  excellence  not  often 
found  in  one  of  his  years — and  possessed  of  knowl- 
edge in  more  than  one  point,  first-rate,  and  of  intel- 


lo6  My  Autobiography 

lectual  capacities  excellent  throughout.  May  his 
young  mind  develop  more  and  more,  may  the  fruits 
of  his  labours  hereafter  be  a  comfort  to  his  mother 
for  the  sorrows  and  cares  of  the  past." 

It  was  rather  hard  on  me  that  I  had  to  pass  my 
examination  for  admission  to  the  University  {Ahi- 
turienten-Examen)  not  at  my  own  school,  but  at 
Zerbst  in  Anhalt.  This  was  necessary  in  order  to 
enable  me  to  obtain  a  scholarship  from  the  Anhalt 
Government,  The  schools  in  Anhalt  were  modelled 
after  the  Prussian  schools,  and  laid  far  more  stress 
on  mathematics,  physical  science,  and  modern  lan- 
guages than  the  schools  in  Saxony.  I  had  there- 
fore to  get  up  in  a  very  short  time  several  quite  new 
subjects,  and  did  not  do  so  well  in  them  as  in  Greek 
and  Latin.  However,  I  passed  with  a  first  class,  and 
obtained  my  scholarship,  small  as  it  was.  It  was 
only  the  other  day  that  I  received  a  letter  from  a 
gentleman  who  was  at  school  at  Zerbst  when  I  came 
there  for  my  examination.  He  reminds  me  that 
among  my  examiners  there  were  such  men  as  Dr. 
Ritter,  the  two  Sentenis,  and  Professor  Werner,  and 
he  says  that  he  watched  me  when  I  came  upstairs 
and  entered  the  locked  room  to  do  my  paper  work. 
My  friend's  career  in  life  had  been  that  of  Director 
of  a  Life  Insurance  Company,  probably  a  more 
lucrative  career  than  what  mine  has  been. 

During  my  stay  at  Leipzig,  first  in  the  house  of 
Professor  Cams,  and  afterwards  as  a  student  at  the 
University,    my    chief    enjoyment    was    certainly 


School-Days  at  Leipzig  107 

music.  I  had  plenty  of  it,  perhaps  too  much,  but 
I  pity  the  man  who  has  not  known  the  charm  of  it. 
At  that  time  Leipzig  was  really  the  centre  of  music 
in  Germany.  Felix  Mendelssohn  was  there,  and 
most  of  the  distinguished  artists  and  composers  of 
the  day  came  there  to  spend  some  time  with  him 
and  to  assist  at  the  famous  Gewandhaus  Concerts. 
I  find  among  my  letters  a  few  descriptions  of  con- 
certs and  other  musical  entertainments,  which  even 
at  present  may  be  of  some  interest.  I  was  asked 
to  be  present  at  some  concerts  where  quartettes  and 
other  pieces  were  performed  by  Mendelssohn, 
Hiller,  Kaliwoda,  David,  and  Eckart.  Liszt  also 
made  his  triumphant  entry  into  Germany  at  Leip- 
zig, and  everybody  was  full  of  expectation  and  ex- 
citement. His  concert  had  been  advertised  long 
before  his  ari'ival.  It  was  to  consist  of  an  Overture 
of  Weber's;  a  Cavatina  from  Robert  le  Diahle, 
sung  by  Madame  Schlegel ;  a  Concerto  of  Weber's, 
to  be  played  by  Liszt,  the  same  which  I  had  shortly 
before  heard  played  by  Madame  Pleyel;  Beet- 
hoven's Overture  to  Prometheus;  Fantasia  on  La 
Juivej  Schubert's  Ave  Maria  and  Serenade,  as 
arranged  by  Liszt.  I  was  the  more  delighted  be- 
cause I  had  myself  played  some  of  these  pieces. 
But  suddenly  there  appeared  a  placard  stating  that 
Liszt,  on  hearing  that  tickets  were  sold  at  one 
thaler  (three  shillings),  had  declared  he  would  play 
a  few  pieces  only  and  without  an  orchestra.  In  spite 
of  that  disappointment,  the  whole  house  was  full. 


lo8  My  Autobiography 

the  staircase  crowded  from  top  to  bottom,  and  when 
we  had  pushed  our  way  through,  we  found  that 
about  300  places  had  been  retained  for  one  and  a 
half  thalers  (four  shillings  and  sixpence),  while 
tickets  at  the  box-office  were  sold  for  two  thalers 
(six  shillings).  Nevertheless,  I  managed  to  get  a 
very  good  place,  by  simply  not  seeing  a  number  of 
ladies  who  were  pushing  behind  me.  When  Liszt 
appeared  there  was  a  terrible  hissing — he  looked 
as  if  petrified,  glanced  like  a  demon  at  the  public, 
but  nevertheless  began  to  play  the  Scherzo  and 
Finale  of  the  Pastoral  Symphony.  Then  there 
burst  out  a  perfect  thunder  of  applause,  and  all 
seemed  pacified,  while  Madame  Schmidt  sang  a 
song  accompanied  by  a  certain  Mr.  Kermann.  As 
soon  as  that  was  over,  a  new  storm  of  hisses  arose, 
which  was  meant  for  this  Mr.  Kermann,  who  was  a 
pupil,  but  at  the  same  time  the  man  of  business  of 
Liszt.  He  and  three  other  men  had  made  all  ar- 
rangements, and  Liszt  knew  nothing  about  them, 
as  he  cared  very  little  for  the  money,  which  went 
chiefly  to  his  managers.  A  Fantasia  by  Liszt  fol- 
lowed, and  lastly  a  Galop  Chromatique — but  the 
public  would  not  go  away,  and  at  length  Liszt  was 
induced  to  play  Une  grande  Valse.  It  was  no 
doubt  a  new  experience;  but  I  could  not  go  into 
ecstasies  like  others,  for  after  all  it  was  merely  me- 
chanical, though  no  doubt  in  the  highest  perfection. 
The  day  after  Liszt  advertised  that  his  original  Pro- 
gramme would  be  played,  but  at  six  o'clock  Profess- 


School-Days  at  Leipzig  109 

or  Carus,  with  whom  I  Hved,  was  called  to  see  Liszt, 
who  was  said  to  be  ill;  the  fact  being  he  had  only 
sold  fifty  tickets  at  the  raised  prices.  Many 
strangers  who  had  come  to  Leipzig  to  hear  him  went 
away,  anything  but  pleased  with  the  new  musical 
genius.  At  one  concert,  where  he  appeared  in  Mag- 
yar costume,  the  ladies  offered  him  a  golden  laurel 
wreath  and  sword.  He  had  just  published  his  ar- 
rangement of  Adelaida,  which  he  promised  to  play 
in  one  of  the  concerts. 

Another  very  musical  family  at  Leipzig  was  that 
of  Professor  Froge.  He  was  a  rich  man,  and  had 
married  a  famous  singer,  Friiulein  Schlegel.  One 
evening  the  Sonnamhida  was  performed  in  their 
house,  which  had  been  changed  into  a  theatre.  She 
acted  the  Sonnambula,  and  her  singing  as  well  as 
her  acting  was  most  finished  and  delightful.  Men- 
delssohn was  much  in  their  house,  and  made  her 
sing  his  songs  as  soon  as  they  were  written  and  be- 
fore they  were  published.  They  were  great  friends, 
the  bond  of  their  friendship  being  music.  He 
actually  died  when  playing  while  she  was  singing. 
People  talked  as  they  always  will  talk  about  what 
they  cannot  understand,  but  they  evidently  did  not 
know  either  Mendelssohn  or  Madame  Froge. 

The  house  of  Professor  Carus  was  always  open 
to  musical  geniuses,  and  many  an  evening  men  like 
Hiller,  Mendelssohn,  David,  Eckart,  &c,,  came 
there  to  play,  while  Madame  Carus  sang,  and  sang 
most  charmingly,     I  too  was  asked  sometimes  to 


no  XIt  Av 

1>4\  -Aiwi  Tii*:  *tVr  )k<«niii$ 

£net  W  \  »r  his  v^wa  «»5nwttf«l  ittU>  li^ 

^  fv^  ibe  £ri?i  \y  TioiniutKV*     1  iKmk  «  >«» 

,  -  ri  i:   '  "  > .  *»d  \vv  :i«>3U\;  A 

r^.    -5^  psil::i  "  As  V.  .  -  :>* 

\  .r-va^sTi-.V    «.«.;  -Ui^^r    UiAt 

: .  ;  rt^  xTis  i^i>5xy  iv*  j  j^Ut^six  Aud  U*ftt  foi- 

.  .  "     u.  l^si:,  ju.v.  Xi;.4>.r.     .;  v»i;s  ^>? 

«».•.  -,  >  Arraiii^rirKUl  v^i  ihe  All 

KvAU-c  '.v.v-::^  iv.v:  v.  — .     S.  .  ,v »  »^    ^ ..  gav* 

A^iu^  vVixxrt*  With  V  ...c..;,  a  irrt it  \k^X>JKvHisi>  at 
Mtrs^Vv-T^,  a»d  ax  a  iVnut  V-  ■"  X  a  >vrv  riA 
i^-K^iuin  iHNir  Me^^^^' •":'    ^ -vl  iuvit^  lisat 

x\^r  «.!■::   :^.  -'.r.s:  ai>i .r.  liX>  diva^?.      fhis 


ScbooiV-Dayf  at  Le^zag  iii 

seeui^  at  tiiat  tkoie  £  r-err  hr^  exmu  almoBt  senBe 
k«K.  As  a  du<:at  wat  aVjut  iiioe  RVn'llingE,  h  vee 
aft^r  aJl  only  £45,  wiiii-L  -would  not  Betan  cxeeBBixe 
at  jjreeent  for  ac  artib-t  eucii  as  liezt- 

I  ilso  Leard  TLalljerg  at  Leipzig.  Tli^  all  eaioe 
to  see  Mend'rlbb^'iija,  and  I  believe  did  tLeir  beet  1» 
please  Lim,  At  that  time  mj  ideo.  of  derorrng  hit- 
self  altogether  to  the  etudj  of  muBie  becanxe  t€tt 
0trong;  and  ag  Professor  Carus  mamed  again.  I  pro- 
posed to  leave  Leipzig,  and  to  enter  the  mnsicaLl 
school  of  Schneider  at  DessaxL  But  nothing  came 
of  that,  and  I  think  on  the  whole  it  -was  ag  -srelL 

While  at  school  at  Leipzig  I  had  hut  little  op- 
portunity of  travelling,  for  my  mother  was  al-srayE 
anxiouB  to  have  me  home  during  the  holidays,  and 
I  was  equally  anxious  to  be  with  her  and  to  see  my 
relations  at  Dessau.  Generallv  I  went  in  a  wretched 
carriage  from  Leipzig  to  Dessau.  It  was  only  seven 
German  miles  (about  thirty-five  English  miles),  but 
it  took  a  whole  day  to  get  there;  and  during  part 
of  the  journey,  when  we  had  to  cross  the  deep  and 
desert-like  sands,  walking  on  foot  was  much  more 
exf^editious  than  sitting  inside  the  carriage.  But 
then  we  paid  only  one  thaler  for  the  whole  journey, 
and  sometimes,  in  order  to  save  that,  I  walked  on 
foot  the  whole  way.  That  also  took  me  a  whole  day ; 
but  when  I  tried  it  the  first  time,  being  then  quite 
young  and  rather  delicate  in  health,  I  had  to  give 
in  alxjut  an  hour  before  I  came  to  Dessau,  my  le^ 
refusing   to   go   further,    and   my    muscles   being 


112  My  Autobiography 

cramped  and  stiff  from  exertion,  I  had  to  sit  down 
by  the  road.  During  one  vacation  I  remember  ex- 
ploring the  valley  of  the  Mulde  with  some  other 
boys.  AVe  travelled  for  about  a  fortnight  from  vil- 
lage to  village,  and  lived  in  the  simplest  way.  A 
more  ambitious  journey  I  took  in  1841  with  a  friend 
of  mine,  Baron  von  Hagedom.  He  was  a  curious 
and  somewhat  mysterious  character.  He  had  been 
brought  up  by  a  great-aunt  of  mine,  to  whom  he 
was  entrusted  as  a  baby.  No  one  knew  his  parents, 
but  they  must  have  been  rich,  for  he  possessed  a 
large  fortune.  He  had  a  country  place  near  Mu- 
nich, and  he  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  year  in 
travelling  about,  and  amusing  himself.  He  had 
been  brought  up  with  my  mother  and  other  mem- 
bers of  our  family,  and  he  took  a  very  kind  interest 
in  me.  I  see  from  my  letters  that  in  1841  he 
took  me  from  Dessau  to  Coethen,  Brunswick,  and 
[Magdeburg.  At  Brunswick  we  saw  the  picture  gal- 
lery, the  churches,  and  the  tomb  of  Scliill,  one  of 
the  German  volunteers  in  the  War  of  Independence 
against  France.  We  also  explored  Hildesheim,  saw 
the  rose-tree  planted,  as  we  were  told,  by  Charle- 
magne; then  proceeded  to  Gottingen,  and  saw  its 
famous  library.  We  passed  through  ]\Iinden,  where 
the  Fulda  and  Werra  join,  and  arrived  late  at  Cas- 
sel.  From  Cassel  we  explored  Wilhclrashohe,  the 
beautiful  park  where  thirty  years  later  Napoleon 
III  was  kept  as  a  prisoner. 

Hagedom,  with  all  his  love  of  mystery  and  oc- 


School-Days  at  Leipzig  113 

casional  exaggeration,  was  certainly  a  good  friend 
to  me.  He  often  gave  me  good  advice,  and  was 
more  of  a  father  to  me  than  a  mere  friend.  He 
was  a  man  of  the  world ;  and  he  forgot  that  I  never 
meant  to  be  a  man  of  the  world,  and  therefore  his 
advice  was  not  always  what  I  wanted.  He  was 
also  a  great  friend  of  my  cousin  who  was  married 
to  a  Prince  of  Dessau,  and  they  had  agreed  among 
themselves  that  I  should  go  to  the  Oriental 
Academy  at  Vienna,  learn  Oriental  languages,  and 
then  enter  the  diplomatic  ser"\ace.  As  there  were 
no  children  from  the  Prince's  marriage,  I  was  to 
be  adopted  by  him,  and,  as  if  the  princely  fortune 
was  not  enough  to  tempt  me,  I  was  told  that  even  a 
wife  had  been  chosen  for  me,  and  that  I  should 
have  a  new  name  and  title,  after  being  adopted  by 
the  Prince.  To  other  young  men  this  might  have 
seemed  irresistible.  I  at  once  said  no.  It  seemed 
to  interfere  with  my  freedom,  with  my  studies,  with 
my  ideal  of  a  career  in  life;  in  fact,  though  every- 
thing was  presented  to  me  by  my  cousin  as  on  a 
silver  tray,  I  shook  my  head  and  remained  true  to 
my  first  love,  Sanskrit  and  all  the  rest.  Hagedorn 
could  not  understand  this;  he  thought  a  brilliant 
life  preferable  to  the  quiet  life  of  a  professor.  Not 
so  I.  He  little  knew  where  true  happiness  was  to 
be  found,  and  he  was  often  in  a  very  melancholy 
mood.  He  did  not  live  long,  but  I  shall  never  for- 
get how  much  I  owed  him.  When  I  went  to  Paris, 
he  allowed  me  to  live  in  his  rooms.     They  were, 


114  My  Autobiography 

it  is  true,  au  cinquieme,  but  tliey  were  in  tlie  best 
quarter  of  Paris,  in  the  Rue  Royale  St.  Honore, 
opposite  the  Madeleine,  and  very  prettily  furnished. 
This  kept  me  from  living  in  dusty  lodgings  in  the 
Quartier  Latin,  and  the  five  flights  of  stairs  may 
have  strengthened  my  lungs.  I  well  remember 
what  it  was  when  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase  I  saw 
that  I  had  forgotten  my  handkerchief  and  had  to 
toil  up  again.  But  in  those  days  one  did  not  know 
what  it  meant  to  be  tired.  Wliether  my  friends 
grumbled,  I  cannot  tell,  but  I  myself  pitied  some 
of  them  who  were  old  and  gouty  when  they  arrived 
at  my  door  out  of  breath. 


CHAPTER  IV 

UNIVERSITY 

In  order  to  enable  me  to  go  to  the  University,  my 
mother  and  sister  moved  to  Leipzig  and  kept  house 
for  me  during  all  the  time  I  was  there — that  is, 
for  two  years  and  a  half.  In  spite  of  the  res  angusta 
domi,  I  enjoyed  my  student-life  thoroughly,  while 
my  home  was  made  very  agreeable  by  my  mother 
and  sister.  My  mother  was  full  of  resource,  and 
she  was  wise  enough  not  to  interfere  with  my  free- 
dom. My  sister,  who  was  about  two  years  older 
than  myself,  was  most  kind-hearted  and  devoted 
both  to  me  and  to  our  mother.  There  was  nothing 
selfish  in  her,  and  we  three  lived  together  in  perfect 
love,  peace,  and  harmony.  My  sister  enjoyed  what 
little  there  was  of  society,  whereas  I  kept  sternly 
aloof  from  it.  She  was  much  admired,  and  soon 
became  engaged  to  a  young  doctor.  Dr.  A.  Krug, 
the  son  of  the  famous  professor  of  philosophy  at 
Leipzig,  whose  works,  particularly  his  Dictionary  of 
Philosophy,  hold  a  distinguished  place  in  the  history 
of  German  philosophy.  He  was  a  thorough  patriot, 
and  so  public  spirited  that  he  thought  it  right  to 
leave  a  considerable  sum  of  money  to  the  Univer- 
sity, mthout  making  sufficient  provision  for  his 

115 


Ii6  My  Autobiography 

children.  However,  the  young  married  couple 
lived  happily  at  Chemnitz,  and  my  sister  was  proud 
in  thS' possession  of  her  children.  It  was  the  sud- 
den death  of  several  of  these  children  that  broke  her 
heart  and  ruined  her  health ;  she  died  very  young. 
Standing  by  the  grave  of  her  children,  she  said  to 
me  shortly  before  her  death,  "  Half  of  me  is  dead 
already,  and  lies  buried  there;  the  other  half  will 
soon  follow." 

Of  society,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  I 
saw  hardly  anything.  I  am  afraid  I  was  rather  a 
bear,  and  declined  even  to  invest  in  evening  dress. 
I  joined  a  student  club  which  formed  part  of  the 
Burschenschaft,  but  which  in  order  to  escape  pros- 
ecution adopted  the  title  of  Gemeinschaft.  I  went 
there  in  the  evening  to  drink  beer  and  smoke,  and 
I  made  some  delightful  acquaintances  and  friend- 
ships. What  fine  characters  were  there,  often  be- 
hind a  very  rough  exterior!  My  dearest  friend  was 
Prowe,  of  Thorn  in  East  Prussia — so  honest,  so 
true,  so  straightforward,  so  over-conscientious  in  the 
smallest  things.  He  was  a  classical  scholar,  and 
later  on  entered  the  Prussian  educational  service. 
As  a  master  at  the  principal  school  at  Thorn  his 
time  was  fully  occupied,  and  of  course  he  was  cut 
off  there  from  the  enlivening  influences  of  literary 
society.  Still  he  kept  up  his  interest  in  higher  ques- 
tions, and  published  some  extremely  valua1)le  books 
on  Copernicus,  a  native  of  Thorn,  for  which  he 
received  the  thanks  of  astronomers  and  historians. 


University  I17 

and  flattering  testimonials  from  learned  societies. 
We  met  but  seldom  later  in  life,  and  my  own  life 
in  England  was  so  busy  and  full  that  even  our  cor- 
respondence was  not  regular.  But  I  met  him  once 
more  at  Ems  with  a  charming  wife,  and  decidedly 
happy  in  his  own  sphere  of  activity.  These  early 
friendships  form  the  distant  landscape  of  life  on 
which  we  like  to  dwell  when  the  present  ceases  to 
absorb  all  our  thoughts.  Our  memory  dwells  on 
them  as  a  golden  horizon,  and  there  remains  a  con- 
stant yearning  which  makes  us  feel  the  incomplete- 
ness of  this  life.  After  all,  the  number  of  our  true 
friends  is  small ;  and  yet  how  few  even  of  that  small 
number  remain  with  us  for  life.  There  are  other 
faces  and  other  names  that  rise  from  beyond  the 
clouds  which  more  and  more  divide  us  from  our 
early  years. 

There  were  some  wild  spirits  among  us  who  fret- 
ted at  the  narrow-minded  policy  which  w^ent  by  the 
name  of  the  Metternich  system.  Repression  was 
the  panacea  which  Metternich  recommended  to  all 
the  governments  of  Germany,  large  and  small. 
No  doubt  the  system  of  keeping  things  quiet  se- 
cured to  Germany  and  to  Europe  at  large  a  thirty 
years'  peace,  but  it  could  not  prevent  the  accumula- 
tion of  inflammable  material  which,  after  several 
threatenings,  burst  forth  at  last  in  the  conflagra- 
tion of  1848.  Among  my  friends  I  remember 
several  who  were  ready  for  the  wildest  schemes  in 
order  to  have  Germany  united,  respected  abroad, 


ii8  My  Autobiography 

and  under  constitutional  government  at  home. 
Splendid  fellows  they  were,  but  they  either  ended 
their  days  within  the  walls  of  a  prison,  or  had  to 
throw  up  everything  and  migrate  to  America. 
What  has  become  of  them?  Some  have  risen  to  the 
surface  in  America,  others  have  yielded  to  the  in- 
evitable and  become  peaceful  citizens  at  home;  nay, 
I  am  grieved  to  say,  have  even  accepted  service 
under  Government  to  spy  on  their  former  friends 
and  fellow-dreamers.  But  not  a  few  saw  the  whole 
of  their  life  wrecked  either  in  prison  or  in  poverty, 
though  they  had  done  no  wrong,  and  in  many  cases 
were  the  finest  characters  it  has  been  my  good  fort- 
une to  know.  They  were  before  their  time,  the 
fruit  was  not  ripe  as  it  was  in  1871,  but  Germany 
certainly  lost  some  of  her  best  sons  in  those  miser- 
able years;  and  if  my  father  escaped  this  political 
persecution,  it  was  probably  due  to  the  influence  of 
the  reigning  Duke  and  the  Duchess,  a  Princess  of 
Prussia,  who  knew  that  he  was  not  a  dangerous  man, 
and  not  likely  to  blow  up  the  German  Diet. 

I  myself  got  a  taste  of  prison  life  for  the  offence 
of  wearing  the  ribbon  of  a  club  which  the  police 
regarded  with  disfavour.  I  cannot  say  that  either 
the  disgrace  or  the  discomfort  of  my  two  days' 
durance  vile  weighed  much  with  me,  as  my  friends 
were  allowed  free  access  to  me,  and  came  and  drank 
beer  and  smoked  cigars  in  my  cell — of  course  at  my 
expense — but  what  I  dreaded  was  the  loss  of  my 
stipendium  or  scholarship,  w^hich  alone  enabled  me 


University  1 19 

to  continue  my  studies  at  Leipzig,  and  which,  as 
a  rule,  was  forfeited  for  political  offences.  On  my 
release  from  prison  I  went  to  the  Rector  of  the 
University  and  explained  to  him  the  circumstances 
of  the  case — how  I  had  been  arrested  simply  for 
membership  of  a  suspected  club.  I  assured  him 
that  I  was  innocent  of  any  political  propaganda,  and 
that  the  loss  of  my  stipendium  would  entail  my 
leaving  the  University.  Much  to  my  relief,  the  old 
gentleman  replied :  "  I  have  heard  nothing  about 
this ;  and  if  I  do,  how  am  I  to  know  that  it  refers  to 
you,  there  are  many  Miillers  in  the  University  ? " 
Fortunately  the  distinctive  prefix  Max  had  not  yet 
been  added  to  my  name. 

I  must  confess  that  I  and  my  boon  companions 
were  sometimes  guilty  of  practices  which  in  more 
modern  days,  and  certainly  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge, 
would  be  far  more  likely  to  bring  the  culprits  into 
collision  with  the  authorities  than  mere  member- 
ship of  societies  in  which  comparatively  harmless 
political  talk  was  indulged  in. 

Duelling  was  then,  as  it  is  now,  a  favourite  pas- 
time among  the  students;  and  though  not  by  nature 
a  brawler,  I  find  that  in  my  student  days  at  Leipzig 
I  fought  three  duels,  of  two  of  which  I  carry  the 
marks  to  the  present  day. 

I  remember  that  on  one  occasion  before  the  intro- 
duction of  cabs  we  hired  all  the  sedan-chairs  in  Leip- 
zig, with  their  yellow-coated  porters,  and  went  in 
procession  through  the  streets,  much  to  the  astonish- 


I20  My  Autobiography 

ment  of  the  good  citizens,  and  annoyance  also,  as 
tliey  were  unable  to  hire  any  means  of  conveyance 
till  a  peremptory  stop  was  put  to  our  fun.  Not  con- 
tent with  this  exploit,  when  the  first  cabs  were  in- 
troduced into  Leipzig,  thirty  or  forty  being  put  on 
the  street  at  first,  I  and  my  friends  secured  the  use 
of  all  of  them  for  the  day,  and  proceeded  out  into 
the  country.  The  inhabitants  who  were  eagerly 
looking  forward  to  a  drive  in  one  of  the  new  con- 
veyances were  naturally  annoyed  at  finding  them- 
selves forestalled,  and  the  result  was  that  a  stop 
was  put  to  such  freaks  in  future  by  the  issue  of  a 
police  regulation  that  nobody  was  allowed  to  hire 
more  than  two  cabs  at  a  time. 

Very  innocent  amusements,  if  perhaps  foolish, 
but  very  happy  days  all  the  same;  and  it  must  be 
remembered  that  we  had  just  emerged  from  the 
strict  discipline  of  a  German  school  into  the  unre- 
stricted liberty  of  German  university  life. 

It  is  in  every  respect  a  great  jump  from  a  Ger- 
man school  to  a  German  university.  At  school  a 
boy  even  in  the  highest  form,  has  little  choice.  All 
his  lessons  are  laid  down  for  him;  he  has  to  learn 
what  he  is  told,  whether  he  likes  it  or  not.  Few 
only  venture  on  books  outside  the  prescribed  curric- 
ulum. There  is  an  examination  at  the  end  of  every 
half-year,  and  a  boy  must  pass  it  well  in  order  to 
get  into  a  higher  form.  Boys  at  a  public  school 
(gymnasium),  if  they  cannot  pass  their  examina- 
tion at  the  proper  time,  are  advised  to  go  to  another 


University  I2l 

school,  and  to  prepare  for  a  career  in  which  classical 
languages  are  of  less  importance. 

I  must  say  at  once  that  when  I  matriculated  at 
Leipzig,  in  the  summer  of  1841,  I  was  still  very 
young  and  very  immature.  I  had  determined  to 
study  philology,  chiefly  Greek  and  Latin,  but  the 
fare  spread  out  by  the  professors  was  much  too 
tempting.  I  read  Greek  and  Latin  without  diffi- 
culty; I  often  read  classical  authors  without  ever 
attempting  to  translate  them;  I  also  wrote  and 
spoke  Latin  easily.  Some  of  the  professors  lectured 
in  Latin,  and  at  our  academic  societies  Latin  was 
always  spoken.  I  soon  became  a  member  of  the 
classical  seminary  under  Gottfried  Hermann,  and 
of  the  Latin  Society  under  Professor  Haupt.  Ad- 
mission to  these  seminaries  and  societies  was  ob- 
tained by  submitting  essays,  and  it  was  no  doubt  a 
distinction  to  belong  to  them.  It  was  also  useful, 
for  not  only  had  we  to  write  essays  and  discuss  them 
with  the  other  members,  generally  teachers,  and 
with  the  professor,  but  we  could  also  get  some  use- 
ful advice  from  the  professor  for  our  private  studies. 
In  that  respect  the  German  universities  do  very 
little  for  the  students,  unless  one  has  the  good  fort- 
une to  belong  to  one  of  these  societies.  The  young 
men  are  let  loose,  and  they  can  choose  whatever 
lectures  they  want.  I  still  have  my  Collegien-Buch, 
in  which  every  professor  has  to  attest  what  lectures 
one  has  attended.  The  number  of  lectures  on  vari- 
ous subjects  which  I  attended  is  quite  amazing,  and 


122  My  Autobiography 

I  should  have  attended  still  more  if  the  honorarium 
had  not  frightened  me  away.  Every  professor 
lectured  publice  and  privatim,  and  for  the  more 
important  courses,  four  lectures  a  week,  he  charged 
ten  shillings,  for  more  special  courses  less  or  nothing. 
This  seems  little,  but  it  was  often  too  much  for  me; 
and  if  one  added  these  honoraria  to  the  salary  of  a 
popular  professor,  his  income  was  considerable,  and 
was  more  than  the  income  of  most  public  servants. 
I  have  known  professors  who  had  four  or  five  hun- 
dred auditors.  This  gave  them  £250  twice  a  year, 
and  that,  added  to  their  salary,  was  considered  a 
good  income  at  that  time.  All  this  has  been  much 
changed.  Salaries  have  been  raised,  and  likewise 
the  honoraria,  so  that  I  well  remember  the  case  of 
Professor  von  Savigny,  who,  when  he  was  chosen 
Minister  of  Justice  at  Berlin,  declared  that  he  w^ould 
gladly  accept  if  only  his  salary  was  raised  to  what 
his  income  had  been  as  Professor  of  Law.  Of 
course,  professors  of  Arabic  or  Sanskrit  were  badly 
off,  and  Privatdocenten  (tutors)  fared  still  worse, 
but  the  professores  ordinarii,  particularly  if  they 
lectured  on  an  obligatory  subject  and  were  likewise 
examiners,  were  very  well  off.  In  fact,  it  struck  me 
sometimes  as  very  unworthy  of  them  to  keep  a 
famulus,  a  student  who  had  to  tell  every  one  who 
wished  to  hear  a  distinguished  professor  once  or 
twice,  that  he  would  not  allow  him  to  come  a  third 
time. 

One  great  drawback  of  the  professorial  system  is 


University  123 

certainly  the  small  measure  of  personal  advice  that 
a  student  may  get  from  the  professors.  Unless  he 
is  known  to  them  personally,  or  has  gained  admis- 
sion to  their  societies  or  seminaries,  the  young  stu- 
dent or  freshman  is  quite  bewildered  by  the  rich 
fare  in  the  shape  of  lectures  that  is  placed  before 
him.  Some  students,  no  doubt,  particularly  in  their 
early  terms,  solve  this  difficulty  by  attending  none 
at  all,  and  there  is  no  force  to  make  them  do  so,  ex- 
cept the  examinations  looming  in  the  distance.  But 
there  are  many  young  men  most  anxious  to  learn, 
only  they  do  not  know  where  to  begin.  I  open  my 
old  Collegien-Buch  and  I  find  that  in  the  first  term 
or  Semester  I  attended  the  following  lectures,  and 
I  may  say  I  attended  them  regularly,  took  careful 
notes,  and  read  such  books  as  were  recommended 
by  the  professors.    I  find 

1.  The  first  book  of  Thucydides  .  Gottfried  Hermann. 

2.  On  Scenic  Antiquities     .         .  The  same. 

3.  On  Propertius  .         .         .P.M.  Haupt. 

4.  History  of  German  Literature  The  same. 

5.  The  Ranae  of  Aristophanes    .  Stallbaum- 

6.  Disputatorium  (in  Latin)       .  Nobbe. 

7.  Aesthetics        ....  Weisse. 

8.  Anthropology  ....  Lotze. 

9.  Systems  of  Harmonic  Compo- 

sition    Fink. 

10.  Hebrew  Grammar    .        .        .  Fiirst. 

11.  Demostlienes    ....  Westermann. 

12.  Psychology      ....  Heinroth. 

This  was  enough  for  the  summer  half-year.     Ex- 
cept Greek  and  Latin,  the  other  subjects  were  en- 


124 


My  Autobiography 


tirelj  new  to  me,  and  what  I  wanted  was  to  get  an 
idea  of  what  I  should  like  to  study.  It  may  be 
interesting  to  add  the  other  Semesters  as  far  as  I 
have  them  in  my  CoUegioi-Buch. 


13.  Aeschyli  Persae 

14.  On  Criticism  .         .         .         . 

15.  German  Grammar  . 

16.  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  . 

17.  Tacitus,  Agricola,  and  De  Ora- 

toribus 

18.  On  Hegel 

19.  Disputatorium  (Latin) 

20.  Modern  History 

21.  Sanskrit  Grammar 

22.  Latin  Society  . 


Hermann. 
The  same. 
Haupt. 
The  same. 

The  same. 

Weisse. 

Nobbe. 

Wachsmuth. 

Brockhaus. 

Haupt. 


Then  follows  the  summer  term  of  1842. 

23.  Pindar Hermann. 

24.  Nibelungen      ....  Haupt. 

25.  Nala         .....  Brockhaus, 

26.  History  of  Oriental  Literature  The  same. 

27.  Arabic  Grammar      .        .         .  Fleischer. 

28.  Latin  Society  ....  Haupt. 

29.  Plauti  Trinumus     .        .        .  Becker. 


Winter  term,  1842. 

30.  Prabodha  Chandrodaya  .  Brockhaus. 

31.  History  of  Indian  Literature  .  The  same. 

32.  Aristophanes'  Vespae      .        .  Hermann. 

33.  Plauti  Rudens  .         .         .  The  same. 

34.  Greek  Syntax  ....  The  same. 

35.  Juvenal   .....  Becker. 

36.  Metaphysics  and  Logic   .        .  Weisse. 

37.  Philosophy  of  History    .        .  The  same. 


University 


125 


38. 

Greek  and  Latin  Seminary 

Hermann  &  Klotze. 

39. 

Latin  Society  .... 

Haupt. 

40. 

Philosophical  Society 

Weisse. 

41. 

Philosophical  Society 
Summer  term,  1843. 

Drobisch. 

42. 

Greek  and  Latin  Seminary 

Hermann  &  Klotze. 

43. 

Philosophical  Society 

Drobisch. 

44. 

Philosophical  Society 

Weisse. 

45. 

Soma-deva       .... 

Brockhaus. 

46. 

Hitopadesa       .... 

The  same. 

47. 

History  of  Greeks  and  Romans 

Wachsmuth. 

48. 

History  of  Civilization   . 

The  same. 

49. 

History    after    the    Fifteenth 

Century        .... 

Flathe. 

50. 

History  of  Ancient  Philosophy 
Winter  term,  1843-4. 

Niedner. 

51. 

Rig-veda          .... 

Brockhaus. 

52. 

Elementa  Persica    . 

Fleischer. 

58. 

Greek  and  Latin  Seminary     . 

Hermann  &  Klotze, 

Here  my  CoUegien-Buch  breaks  off,  the  fact  be- 
ing that  I  was  preparing  to  go  to  Berlin  to  hear 
the  lectures  of  Bopp  and  Schelling. 

It  will  be  clear  from  the  above  list  that  I  certainly 
attempted  too  much.  I  ought  either  to  have  de- 
voted all  my  time  to  classical  studies  exclusively,  or 
carried  on  my  philosophical  studies  more  systemati- 
cally. I  confess  that,  delighted  as  I  was  with  Gott- 
fried Hermann  and  Haupt  as  my  guides  and  teach- 
ers in  classics,  I  found  little  that  could  rouse  my 
enthusiasm  for  Greek  and  Latin  literature,  and  I 


126  My  Autobiography 

always  required  a  dose  of  that  to  make  me  work 
hard.  Everything  seemed  to  me  to  have  heen  done, 
and  there  was  no  virgin  soil  left  to  the  plough,  no 
ruins  on  which  to  try  one's  own  spade.  Hermann 
and  Haupt  gave  me  work  to  do,  but  it  was  all  in 
the  critical  line — the  genealogical  relation  of  vari- 
ous MSS.,  or,  again,  the  peculiarities  of  certain 
poets,  long  before  I  had  fully  grasped  their  general 
character.  What  Latin  vowels  could  or  could  not 
form  elision  in  Horace,  Propertius,  or  Ovid,  was  a 
subject  that  cost  me  much  labour,  and  yet  left  very 
small  results  as  far  as  I  was  personally  concerned. 
One  clever  conjecture,  or  one  indication  to  show 
that  one  MS.  was  dependent  on  the  other,  was  re- 
warded with  a  Doctissime  or  Excellentissime,  but 
a  paper  on  Aeschylus  and  his  view  of  a  divine 
government  of  the  world  received  but  a  nodding 
approval. 

They  certainly  taught  their  pupils  what  accuracy 
meant;  they  gave  us  the  new  idea  that  MSS.  are 
not  everything,  unless  their  real  value  has  been  dis- 
covered first  by  finding  the  place  which  they  occupy 
in  the  pedigree  of  the  MSS.  of  every  author.  They 
also  taught  us  that  there  are  mistakes  in  MSS.  which 
are  inevitable,  and  may  safely  be  left  to  conjectural 
emendation ;  that  MSS.  of  modern  date  may  be  and 
often  are  more  valuable  than  more  ancient  MSS., 
for  the  simple  reason  that  they  were  copied  from 
a  still  more  ancient  MS.,  and  that  often  a  badly 
written  and  hardly  legible  MS.  proves  more  helpful 


University  127 

than  others  written  by  a  calligraphist,  because  it  is 
the  work  of  a  scholar  who  copied  for  himself  and 
not  for  the  market.  All  these  things  we  learnt  and 
learnt  by  practical  experience  under  Hermann  and 
Haupt,  but  what  we  failed  to  acquire  was  a  large 
knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin  literature,  of  the 
character  of  each  author  and  of  the  spirit  which 
pervaded  their  works.  I  ought  to  have  read  in 
Latin,  Cicero,  Tacitus,  and  Lucretius;  in  Greek, 
Herodotus,  Thucydides,  Plato,  and  Aristotle;  but 
as  I  read  only  portions  of  them,  my  knowledge  of 
the  men  themselves  and  their  objects  in  life  re- 
mained very  fragmentary.  For  instance,  my  real 
acquaintance  with  Plato  and  Aristotle  was  confined 
to  a  few  dialogues  of  the  former  and  some  of  the 
logical  works  of  the  latter.  The  rest  I  learnt  from 
such  works  as  Hitter  and  Preller's  Historia  Philoso- 
pliiae  Graecae  et  Romanae  ex  fontium  locis  con- 
texta,  and  from  the  very  useful  lectures  of  Niedner 
on  the  history  of  ancient  philosophy.  However,  I 
thought  I  had  to  do  what  my  professors  told  me, 
and  shaped  my  reading  so  that  they  should  approve 
of  my  work. 

This  must  not  be  understood  as  in  any  way  dis- 
paraging my  teachers.  Such  an  idea  never  entered 
my  head  at  the  time.  People  have  no  idea  in  Eng- 
land what  kind  of  worship  is  paid  by  German  stu- 
dents to  their  professors.  To  find  fault  with 
them  or  to  doubt  their  ipse  dixit  never  entered  our 
minds.     What  they  said  of  other  classical  scholars 


128 


My  Aiitobiognipliy 


from  wliom  tlicy  (lilTcivd,  as  lIcniiimM  did  from 
Otfriod  Al idler,  or  lljni|)t  from  Orclli,  was  gospel, 
and  reiHMined  enjj^raved  on  otir  memorv  for  a  long 
time.  Once  when  attending  Ilei-inann's  leetur(\s, 
another  stndent  who  was  siltini;-  al  the  same  tahle 
with  me  made  disresjieel  lid  remarks  al)out  old  Her- 
mann. I  asked  him  to  be  (iiiiet,  and  when  he  went 
on  with  his  foolish  remarks,  I  eonld  onlv  sl(ij)  him 
by  calling  liim  onl.  As  soon  as  (he  challenge  was 
aecej)(ed  he  had  ^A'  conrse  lo  be  (|iii(l,  and  a  lew 
tlays  after  we  fonght  onr  dnel  willmnt  much  dam- 
age to  either  of  us.  I  only  mention  this  because  it 
shows  what  resj)ect  and  adndralion  we  I'elt  for  our 
])rofessor,  also  because  it  exemplifies  the  nsel'idnes9 
of  duelling  in  a  (Jermau  university,  where  after  a 
challenge  not  another  word  can  be  said  or  vi(dence 
be  tiireatened  oven  by  the  rudest  undergraduate.  A 
duel  for  a  (Jreek  eonjectui-e  nu»y  seem  very  absurd, 
but  in  duels  of  this  kind  all  that  is  wanted  is  really 
a  cei'tain  knowledge  of  fencing,  caic  being  taken 
thatiiothing  serious  shall  ha|)pen.  And  yel,  (hough 
that  is  so,  the  feeling  of  a  pdssible  danger  is  then% 
and  keeps  up  a  certain  eti(piette  and  a  certain  pi-opcr 
beliaviour  among  men  taken  from  all  strata  of  so- 
ciety. Nor  can  I  (piite  deny  (hat  when  I  went  in 
the  moniing  (o  a  beaudful  wood  in  (he  neighbour- 
hood of  Tyeij)/ig,  certain  misgivings  were  dillicnlt 
to  8U])press.  I  saw  myself  severely  woumled,  pos- 
sibly killed,  ])y  my  antagonist,  and  carried  to  a  house 
where  my  mother  and  sister  were  looking  for  me. 


University  129 

This  went  oflF  when  I  met  the  large  assembly  of 
students,  beautifully  attired  in  their  club  uniforms, 
the  beer  barrels  pushed  up  on  one  side,  the  surgeon 
and  his  instruments  waiting  on  the  other.  There 
were  ever  so  many,  thirty  or  forty  couples  I  think, 
waiting  to  fight  their  duels  that  morning.  Some 
fenced  extremely  well,  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  look 
on;  and  when  one's  own  turn  came,  all  one  thought 
of  was  how  to  stand  one's  ground  boldly,  and  how 
to  fence  well.  Some  of  the  combatants  came  on 
horseback  or  in  carriages,  and  there  was  a  small 
river  close  by  to  enable  us  to  escape  if  the  police 
should  have  heard  of  our  meeting.  For  popular  as 
these  duels  are,  they  are  forbidden  and  punished, 
and  the  severest  punishment  seemed  always  to  be 
the  loss  of  our  uniforms,  our  arms,  our  flags,  and 
our  barrels  of  beer.  However,  we  escaped  all  inter- 
ference this  time,  and  enjoyed  our  breakfast  in  the 
forest  thoroughly,  nothing  happening  to  disturb  the 
hilarity  of  the  morning. 

Not  being  satisfied  with  what  seemed  to  me  a 
mere  chewing  of  the  cud  in  Greek  and  Latin,  I 
betook  myself  to  systematic  philosophy,  and  even 
during  the  first  terms  read  more  of  that  than  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle.  I  belonged  to  the  philosophi- 
cal societies  of  Weisse,  of  Drobisch,  and  of  Lotze, 
a  membership  in  each  of  which  societies  entailed  a 
considerable  amount  of  reading  and  writing. 

At  Leipzig,  Professor  Drobisch  represented  the 
school  of  Herbart,  which  prided  itself  on  its  clear- 


130  My  Autobiography 

ness  and  logical  accuracy,  but  was  naturally  less  at- 
tractive to  the  young  spirits  at  the  University  who 
had  heard  of  Hegel's  Idea  and  looked  to  the  dia- 
lectic process  as  the  solution  of  all  difficulties.  I 
wished  to  know  what  it  all  meant,  for  I  was  not 
satisfied  with  mere  words.  There  is  hardly  a  word 
that  has  so  many  meanings  as  Idea,  and  I  doubt 
whether  any  of  the  raw  recruits,  just  escaped  from 
school,  and  unacquainted  with  the  history  of  philos- 
ophy, could  have  had  any  idea  of  what  Hegel's 
Idea  was  meant  for.  Yet  they  talked  about  it  very 
eloquently  and  very  positively  over  their  glasses  of 
beer;  and  anybody  who  came  from  Berlin  and  could 
speak  mysteriously  or  rapturously  about  the  Idea 
and  its  evolution  by  the  dialectic  process,  was  lis- 
tened to  with  silent  wonder  by  the  young  Saxons, 
who  had  been  brought  up  on  Kant  and  Krug.  The 
Hegelian  fever  was  still  very  high  at  that  time.  It 
is  true  Hegel  himself  was  dead  (1831),  and  though 
he  was  supposed  to  have  declared  on  his  deathbed 
that  he  left  only  one  true  disciple,  and  that  that 
disciple  had  misunderstood  him,  to  be  a  Hegelian 
was  considered  a  sine  qua  non,  not  only  among 
philosophers,  but  quite  as  much  among  theologians, 
men  of  science,  lawyers,  artists,  in  fact,  in  every 
branch  of  human  knowledge,  at  least  in  Prussia. 
If  Christianity  in  its  Protestant  form  was  the 
state-religion  of  the  kingdom,  Hegelianism  was  its 
state-philosophy.  Beginning  with  the  Minister  of 
Instruction  down  to  the  village  schoolmaster,  every- 


University  131 

body  claimed  to  be  a  Hegelian,  and  this  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  best  road  to  advancement.  Though 
Altenstein,  who  was  then  at  the  head  of  the  Minis- 
try of  Instruction,  began  to  waver  in  his  allegiance 
to  Hegel,  even  he  could  not  resist  the  rush  of  pub- 
lic and  of  oiRcial  opinion.  It  was  he  who,  when  a 
new  professor  of  philosophy  was  recommended  to 
him  either  by  Hegel  himself  or  by  some  of  his  fol- 
lowers, is  reported  to  have  said:  "Gentlemen,  I 
have  read  some  of  the  young  man's  books,  and  I 
cannot  understand  a  word  of  them.  However,  you 
are  the  best  judges,  only  allow  me  to  say  that  you 
remind  me  a  little  of  the  French  officer  who  told 
his  tailor  to  make  his  breeches  as  tight  as  possible, 
and  dismissed  him  with  the  words:  'Enfin,  si  je  peux 
y  entrer,  je  ne  les  prendrai  pas.'  This  seems  to  me 
very  much  what  you  say  of  your  young  philosopher. 
If  I  can  understand  his  books,  I  am  not  to  take 
him."  This  Hegelian  fever  was  very  much  like  what 
we  have  passed  through  ourselves  at  the  time  of  the 
Darwinian  fever;  Darwin's  natural  evolution  was 
looked  upon  very  much  like  Hegel's  dialectic  proc- 
ess, as  the  general  solvent  of  all  difficulties.  The 
most  egregious  nonsense  was  passed  under  that 
name,  as  it  was  under  the  name  of  evolution.  Hegel 
knew  very  well  what  he  meant,  so  did  Darwin.  But 
the  empty  enthusiasm  of  his  followers  became  so 
wild  that  Darwin  himself,  the  most  humble  of  all 
men,  became  quite  ashamed  of  it.  The  master,  of 
course,   was  not  responsible  for  the   folly   of  his 


132  My  Autobiography 

so-called  disciples,  but  the  result  was  inevitable. 
After  the  bow  had  been  stretched  to  the  utmost,  a 
reaction  followed,  and  in  the  case  of  Hegelianism, 
a  complete  collapse.  Even  at  Berlin  the  popularity 
of  Hegelianism  came  suddenly  to  an  end,  and  after 
a  time  no  truly  scientific  man  liked  to  be  called  a 
Hegelian.  These  sudden  collapses  in  Germany  are 
very  instructive.  As  long  as  a  German  professor 
is  at  the  head  of  affairs  and  can  do  something  for 
his  pupils,  his  pupils  are  very  loud  in  their  encomi- 
ums, both  in  public  and  in  private.  They  not  only 
exalt  him,  but  help  to  belittle  all  who  differ  from 
him.  So  it  was  with  Hegel,  so  it  was  at  a  later  time 
with  Bopp,  and  Curtius,  and  other  professors,  par- 
ticularly if  they  had  the  ear  of  the  Minister  of  Edu- 
cation. But  soon  after  the  death  of  these  men,  par- 
ticularly if  another  influential  star  was  rising,  the 
change  of  tone  was  most  sudden  and  most  surpris- 
ing; even  the  sale  of  their  books  dwindled  down, 
and  they  were  referred  to  only  as  landmarks,  show- 
ing the  rapid  advance  made  by  living  celebrities. 
Perhaps  all  this  cannot  be  helped,  as  long  as  human 
nature  is  what  it  is,  but  it  is  nevertheless  painful 
to  observe. 

I  had  the  good  fortune  of  becoming  acquaint- 
ed with  Hegelianism  through  Professor  Christian 
Weisse  at  Leipzig,  who,  though  he  was  considered 
a  Hegelian,  was  a  very  sober  Hegelian,  a  critic  quite 
as  much  as  an  admirer  of  Hegel.  He  had  a  very 
small  audience,  because  his  manner  of  lecturing  was 
certainly  most  trying  and  tantalizing.    But  by  being 


University  133 

brought  into  personal  contact  with  him  one  was 
able  to  get  help  from  him  wherever  he  could  give 
it.  Though  Weisse  was  convinced  of  the  truth  of 
Hegel's  Dialectic  Method,  he  often  differed  from 
him  in  its  application.  This  Dialectic  Method  con- 
sisted in  showing  how  thought  is  constantly  and  ir- 
resistibly driven  from  an  affirmative  to  a  negative 
position,  then  reconciles  the  two  opposites,  and  from 
tliat  point  starts  afresh,  repeating  once  more  the 
same  process.  Pure  being,  for  instance,  from  which 
Hegel's  ideal  evolution  starts,  was  shown  to  be  the 
same  as  empty  being,  that  is  to  say,  nothing,  and 
both  were  presented  as  identical,  and  in  their  iden- 
tity gi^^ng  us  the  new  concept  of  Becoming  (TFer- 
den),  which  is  being  and  not-being  at  the  same 
time.  All  this  may  appear  to  the  lay  reader  rather 
obscure,  but  could  not  well  be  passed  over. 

So  far  Weisse  followed  the  great  thinker,  and 
I  possess  still,  in  his  own  writing,  the  picture  of  a 
ladder  on  which  the  intellect  is  represented  as  climb- 
ing higher  and  higher  from  the  lowest  concept  to 
the  highest — a  kind  of  Jacob's  ladder  on  which  the 
categories,  like  angels  of  God,  ascend  and  descend 
from  heaven  to  earth.  AVe  must  remember  that  the 
true  Hegehan  regarded  the  Ideas  as  the  thoughts 
of  God.  Hegel  looked  upon  this  evolution  of 
thought  as  at  the  same  time  the  evolution  of  Being, 
the  Idea  being  the  only  thing  that  could  be  said  to 
be  truly  real.  In  order  to  understand  this,  we  must 
remember  that  the  historical  key  to  Hegel's  Idea 


134  My  Autobiography 

was  really  the  Neo-Platonic  or  Alexandrian  Logos. 
But  of  this  Logos  we  ignorant  undergraduates,  sit- 
ting at  the  feet  of  Prof.  Weisse,  knew  absolutely 
nothing,  and  even  if  the  Idea  was  sometimes  placed 
before  us  as  the  Absolute,  the  Infinite,  or  the  Divine, 
it  was  to  us,  at  least  to  most  of  us,  myself  included, 
vox  et  praeterea  7iihil.  We  watched  the  wonderful 
evolutions  and  convolutions  of  the  Idea  in  its  Dia- 
lectic development,  but  of  the  Idea  itself  or  himself 
we  had  no  idea  whatever.  It  was  all  darkness,  a  vast 
abyss,  and  we  sat  patiently  and  wrote  down  what 
we  could  catch  and  comprehend  of  the  Professor's 
explanations,  but  the  Idea  itself  we  never  could  lay 
hold  of.  It  would  not  have  been  so  difficult  if  the 
Professor  had  spoken  out  more  boldly.  But  when- 
ever he  came  to  the  relation  of  the  Idea  to  what  we 
mean  by  God,  there  was  always  even  with  him,  who 
was  a  very  honest  man,  a  certain  theological  hesita- 
tion. Hegel  himself  seems  to  shrink  occasionally 
from  the  consequence  that  the  Idea  really  stands  in 
the  place  of  God,  and  that  it  is  in  the  self-conscious 
spirit  of  humanity  that  the  ideal  God  becomes  first 
conscious  of  himself.  Still,  that  is  the  last  word  of 
Hegel's  philosophy,  though  others  maintain  that 
the  Idea  with  Hegel  was  the  thought  of  God,  and 
that  human  thought  was  but  a  repetition  of  that 
divine  thought.  With  Hegel  there  is  first  the  evo- 
lution of  the  Idea  in  the  pure  ether  of  logic  from 
the  simplest  to  the  highest  category.  Then  follows 
Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Nature,  that  is,  the  evolu- 


University  135 

tion  of  the  Idea  in  nature,  the  Idea  having  by  the 
usual  dialectic  process  negatived  itself  and  entered 
into  its  opposite  (Anderssein),  passing  through  a 
new  process  of  space  and  time,  and  ending  in  the 
self-conscious  human  soul.  Thus  nature  and  spirit 
were  represented  as  dominated  by  the  Idea  in  its 
logical  development.  Nature  was  one  manifestation 
of  the  Idea,  History  the  other,  and  it  became  the 
task  of  the  philosopher  to  discover  its  traces  both  in 
the  progress  of  nature  and  in  the  historical  progress 
of  thought. 

And  here  it  was  where  the  strongest  protests  be- 
gan to  be  heard.  Physical  Science  revolted,  and  His- 
torical Research  soon  joined  the  rebellion.  Profess- 
or Weisse  also,  in  spite  of  his  great  admiration  for 
Hegel,  protested  in  his  Lectures  against  this  idealiza- 
tion of  history,  and  showed  how  often  Hegel,  if  he 
could  not  find  the  traces  he  was  looking  for  in  the 
historical  development  of  the  Idea,  was  misled  by 
his  imperfect  knowledge  of  facts,  and  discovered 
what  was  not  there,  but  what  he  felt  convinced 
ought  to  have  been  there.  Nowhere  has  tliis  be- 
come so  evident  as  in  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Re- 
ligion. The  conception  was  grand  of  seeing  in  the 
historical  development  of  religion  a  repetition  of 
the  Dialectic  Progress  of  the  Idea.  But  facts  are 
stubborn  things,  and  do  not  yield  even  to  the  su- 
preme command  of  the  Idea.  Besides,  if  the  histori- 
cal facts  of  religion  were  really  such  as  the  Dialec- 
tic Process  of  the  Idea  required,  these  facts  are  no 


136  My  Autobiography 

longer  what  they  were  before  1831,  and  what  would 
become  then  of  the  Idea  which,  as  he  wrote  in  his 
preface  to  his  Metaphysics,  could  not  possibly  be 
changed  to  please  the  new  facts?  It  was  this  part 
of  Weisse's  lectures,  it  was  the  protest  of  the  histori- 
cal conscience  against  the  demands  of  the  Idea,  that 
interested  me  most.  I  see  as  clearly  the  formal 
truth  as  the  material  untruth  of  Hegel's  philosophy. 
The  thorough  excellence  of  its  method  and  the  des- 
perate baldness  of  its  results,  strike  me  with  equal 
force.  Though  I  did  not  yet  know  what  kind  of 
thing  or  person  the  Idea  was  really  meant  for,  I 
knew  myself  enough  of  ancient  Greek  philosophy 
and  of  Oriental  religions  to  venture  to  criticize 
Hegel's  representation  and  disposition  of  the  facts 
themselves.  I  could  not  accept  the  answer  of  my 
more  determined  Hegelian  friends,  Tant  pis  pour 
les  fails,  but  felt  more  and  more  the  old  antagon- 
ism between  what  ought  to  be  and  what  is,  between 
the  reasonableness  of  the  Idea,  and  the  unreason- 
ableness of  facts.  I  found  a  strong  supporter  in 
a  young  Privat-Docent  who  at  that  time  began  his 
brilliant  career  at  Leipzig,  Dr.  Lotze.  He  had  made 
a  special  study  of  mathematics  and  physical  science, 
and  felt  the  same  disagreement  between  facts  and 
theories  in  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Nature  which 
had  struck  me  so  much  in  reading  his  Philosophy  of 
Religion.  I  joined  his  philosophical  society,  and  I 
lately  found  among  my  old  papers  several  essays 
which  I  had  written  for  our  meetings.    They  amused 


University  137 

me  very  much,  but  I  should  be  sorry  to  see  them 
published  now.  It  is  curious  that  after  many 
years  I,  as  a  Delegate  of  the  University  Press 
at  Oxford,  was  instrumental  in  getting  the  first 
English  translation  of  Lotze's  Metaphysics  pub- 
lished in  England;  and  it  is  still  more  curious  that 
Mark  Pattison,  the  late  Rector  of  Lincoln,  should 
have  opposed  it  with  might  and  main  as  a  useless 
book  which  would  never  pay  its  expenses.  I  stood 
up  for  my  old  teacher,  and  I  am  glad  to  say  to  the 
honour  of  English  philosophers,  that  the  transla- 
tion passed  through  several  editions,  and  helped  not 
a  little  to  establish  Lotze's  position  in  England  and 
America.    He  died  in  1881. 

It  is  extraordinary  how  the  young  minds  in  Ger- 
man universities  survive  the  storms  and  fogs 
through  which  they  have  to  pass  in  their  academic 
career.  I  confess  I  myself  felt  quite  bewildered  for 
a  time,  and  began  to  despair  altogether  of  my  rea- 
soning powers.  Why  should  I  not  be  able  to  un- 
derstand, I  asked  myself,  what  other  people  seemed 
to  understand  without  any  effort?  We  speak  the 
same  language,  why  should  we  not  be  able  to  think 
the  same  thought?  I  took  refuge  for  a  time  in  his- 
tory— the  history  of  language,  of  religion,  and  of 
philosophy.  There  was  a  very  learned  professor  at 
Leipzig,  Dr.  Niedner,  who  lectured  on  the  History 
of  Greek  Philosophy,  and  whose  Manual  for  the 
History  of  Philosophy  has  been  of  use  to  me 
through  the  whole  of  my  life.     Socrates  said  of 


138  My  Autobiography 

Heraclitus:  "  What  I  have  understood  of  his  hook 
is  excellent,  and  I  suppose  therefore  that  even  what 
I  have  not  understood  is  so  too;  but  one  must  be  a 
Delian  swimmer  not  to  be  drowned  in  it."  I  tried 
for  a  long  time  to  follow  this  advice  with  regard 
to  Hegel  and  Weisse,  and  though  disheartened  did 
not  despair.  I  underst'ood  some  of  it,  why  should 
not  the  rest  follow  in  time  ?  Thus,  I  never  gave  up 
the  study  of  philosophy  at  Leipzig  and  afterwards 
at  Berlin,  and  my  first  contributions  to  philosophical 
journals  date  from  that  early  time,  when  I  was  a 
student  in  the  University  of  Leipzig.  My  very  ear- 
liest, though  very  unsuccessful,  struggles  to  find  an 
entrance  into  the  mysteries  of  philosophy  date  even 
from  my  school-days. 

I  remember  some  years  before,  when  I  was  quite 
young,  perhaps  no  more  than  fifteen  years  of  age, 
listening  with  bated  breath  to  some  professors  at 
Leipzig  who  were  talking  very  excitedly  about  phi- 
losophy in  my  presence.  I  had  no  idea  what  was 
meant  by  philosophy,  still  less  could  I  follow  when 
they  began  to  discuss  Kant's  Eritik  der  reinen  Ver- 
nunft.  One  of  my  friends,  whom  I  looked  up  to  as 
a  great  authority,  confessed  that  he  had  read  the 
book  again  and  again,  but  could  not  understand  the 
whole  of  it.  My  curiosity  was  much  excited,  and 
once,  while  he  was  taking  a  walk  with  me,  I  asked 
him  very  timidly  what  Kant's  book  was  about,  and 
how  a  man  could  write  a  book  that  other  men  could 
not  understand.    He  tried  to  explain  what  Kant's 


University  139 

book  was  about,  but  it  was  all  perfect  darkness  be- 
fore my  eyes;  I  was  trying  to  lay  hold  of  a  word 
here  and  there,  but  it  all  floated  before  my  mind  like 
mist,  without  a  single  ray  of  light,  without  any 
way  out  of  all  that  maze  of  words.  But  when  at  last 
he  said  he  would  lend  me  the  book,  I  fell  on  it  and 
pored  over  it  hour  after  hour.  The  result  was  the 
same.  My  little  brain  could  not  take  in  the  simplest 
ideas  of  the  first  chapters — that  space  and  time  were 
nothing  by  themselves;  that  we  ourselves  gave  the 
form  of  space  and  time  to  what  was  given  us  by  the 
senses.  But  though  defeated  I  would  not  give  in; 
I  tried  again  and  again,  but  of  course  it  was  all  in 
vain.  The  words  were  here  and  I  could  construe 
them,  but  there  was  nothing  in  my  mind  which  the 
words  could  have  laid  hold  on.  It  was  like  rain 
on  hard  soil,  it  all  ran  off,  or  remained  standing  in 
puddles  and  muddles  on  my  poor  brain. 

At  last  I  gave  it  up  in  despair,  but  I  had  fully 
made  up  my  mind  that  as  soon  as  I  went  to  the 
University  I  would  find  out  what  philosophy  really 
was,  and  what  Kant  meant  by  saying  that  space  and 
time  were  forms  of  our  sensuous  intuition.  I  see 
that,  accordingly,  in  the  summer  of  1841,  I  attend- 
ed lectures  on  Aesthetics  by  Professor  Weisse,  on 
Anthropology  by  Lotze,  and  on  Psychology  by  Pro- 
fessor Heinroth,  and  I  slowly  learnt  to  distinguish 
between  what  was  going  on  within  me,  and  what  I 
had  been  led  to  imagine  existed  outside  me,  or  at 
least  quite  independent  of  me.     But  before  I  had 


140  My  Autobiography- 

got  a  firm  grasp  of  Kant,  of  his  forms  of  intuition, 
and  the  categories  of  the  understanding,  I  was 
thrown  into  Hegelianism.  This,  too,  was  at  first 
entire  darkness,  but  I  was  not  disheartened.  I  at- 
tended Professor  Weisse's  lectures  on  Hegel  in  the 
winter  of  1841-2,  and  again  in  the  winter  of 
1842-3  I  attended  his  lectures  on  Logic  and  Meta- 
physics, and  on  the  Philosophy  of  History.  He  took 
an  interest  in  me,  and  I  felt  most  strongly  attracted 
by  him.  Soon  after  I  joined  his  Philosophical  So- 
ciety, and  likewise  that  of  Professor  Drobisch.  In 
these  societies  every  member,  when  his  turn  came, 
had  to  write  an  essay  and  defend  it  against  the  pro- 
fessor and  the  other  members  of  the  society.  All  this 
was  very  helpful,  but  it  was  not  till  I  had  heard  a 
course  of  lectures  on  the  History  of  Philosophy,  by 
Professor  Niedner,  that  my  interest  in  Philosophy 
became  strong  and  healthy.  While  Weisse  was  a 
leading  Hegelian  philosopher,  and  Drobisch  repre- 
sented the  opposite  philosophy  of  Herbart,  Niedner 
was  purely  historical,  and  this  appealed  most  to  my 
taste.  Still,  my  philosophical  studies  remained  very 
disjointed.  At  last  I  was  admitted  to  Lotze's  Philo- 
sophical Society  also,  and  here  we  chiefly  read  and 
discussed  Kant's  Kritik.  Lotze  was  then  quite  a 
young  man,  undecided  as  yet  himself  between 
physical  science  and  pure  philosophy. 

Weisse  was  certainly  the  most  stirring  lecturer, 
but  his  delivery  was  fearful.  He  did  not  read  his 
lectures,  as  many  professors  did,  but  would  dehver 


University  141 

them  extempore.  He  had  no  command  of  language, 
and  there  was  a  pause  after  almost  every  sentence. 
He  was  really  thinking  out  the  problem  while  he 
was  lecturing;  he  was  constantly  repeating  his  sen- 
tences, and  any  new  thought  that  crossed  his  mind 
would  carry  him  miles  away  from  his  subject.  It 
happened  sometimes  in  these  rhapsodies  that  he  con- 
tradicted himself,  but  when  I  walked  home  with 
him  after  his  lecture  to  a  village  near  Leipzig 
where  he  lived,  he  would  readily  explain  how  it 
happened,  how  he  meant  something  quite  different 
from  what  he  had  said,  or  what  I  had  understood. 
In  fact  he  would  give  the  whole  lecture  over  again, 
only  much  more  freely  and  more  intelligibly.  I 
was  fully  convinced  at  that  time  that  Hegel's  phi- 
losophy was  the  final  solution  of  all  problems;  I 
only  hesitated  about  his  philosophy  of  history  as  ap- 
plied to  the  history  of  religion.  I  could  not  bring 
myself  to  admit  that  the  history  of  religion,  nor 
even  the  history  of  philosophy  as  we  know  it  from 
Thales  to  Kant,  was  really  nmning  side  by  side 
with  his  Logic,  showing  how  the  leading  concepts 
of  the  human  mind,  as  elaborated  in  the  Logic,  had 
found  successive  expression  in  the  history  and  de- 
velopment of  the  schools  of  philosophy  as  known 
to  us.  Weisse  was  strong  both  in  his  analysis  of 
concepts  and  in  his  knowledge  of  history,  and 
though  he  taught  Hegel  as  a  faithful  interpreter, 
he  always  warned  us  against  trusting  too  much  in 
the  parallelism  between  Logic  and  History.     Study 


142  My  Autobiography 

the  writings  of  the  good  philosophers,  he  would 
say,  and  then  see  whether  they  will  or  will  not  fit 
into  the  Procrustean  bed  of  Hegel's  Logic.  And 
this  was  the  best  lesson  he  could  have  given  to 
young  men.  How  well  founded  and  necessary  the 
warning  was  I  found  out  myself,  the  more  I  studied 
the  religion  and  philosophies  of  the  East,  and  then 
compared  what  I  saw  in  the  original  documents  with 
the  account  given  by  Hegel  in  his  Philosophy  of 
Religion.  It  is  quite  true  that  Hegel  at  the  time 
when  he  wrote,  could  not  have  gained  a  direct  or 
accurate  knowledge  of  the  principal  religions  of  the 
East.  But  what  I  could  not  help  seeing  was  that 
what  Hegel  represented  as  the  necessity  in  the 
growth  of  religious  thought,  was  far  away  from  the 
real  growth,  as  I  had  watched  it  in  some  of  the 
sacred  books  of  these  religions.  This  shook  my 
belief  in  the  correctness  of  Hegel's  fundamental 
principles  more  than  anything  else. 

At  that  time  Herbart's  philosophy,  as  taught  by 
Drobisch  at  Leipzig,  came  to  me  as  a  most  useful 
antidote.  The  chief  object  of  that  philosophy  is, 
as  is  well  known,  the  analysing  and  clearing,  so  to 
speak,  of  our  concepts.  This  was  exactly  what  I 
wanted,  only  that  occupied  as  I  was  with  the  prob- 
lems of  language,  I  at  once  translated  the  object  of 
his  philosophy  into  a  definition  of  words.  Hence- 
forth the  object  of  my  own  philosophical  occupa- 
tions was  the  accurate  definition  of  every  word. 
All   words,   such   as   reason,    pure    reason,    mind, 


University  143 

thought,  were  carefully  taken  to  pieces  and  traced 
back,  if  possible,  to  their  first  birth,  and  then 
through  their  further  developments.  My  interest 
in  this  analytical  process  soon  took  an  historical, 
that  is  etymological,  character  in  so  far  as  I  tried 
to  find  out  why  any  words  should  now  mean  ex- 
actly what,  according  to  our  definition,  they  ought 
to  mean.  For  instance,  in  examining  such  words 
as  Vernunft  or  Verstand,  a  little  historical  retro- 
spect showed  that  their  distinction  as  reason  and 
understanding  was  quite  modem,  and  chiefly  due  to 
a  scientific  definition  given  and  maintained  by  the 
Kantian  school  of  philosophy.  Of  course  every 
generation  has  a  right  to  define  its  philosophical 
terms,  but  from  an  historical  point  of  view  Kant 
might  have  used  with  equal  right  Vernunft  for 
Verstand,  and  Verstand  for  Vernunft.  Etymo- 
Icgically  or  historically  both  words  have  much  the 
same  meaning.  Vernunft,  from  Vernehmen,  meant 
originally  no  more  than  perception,  while  Verstand 
meant  likewise  perception,  but  soon  came  to  imply 
a  kind  of  understanding,  even  a  kind  of  technical 
knowledge,  though  from  a  purely  etymological 
stand-point  it  had  nothing  that  fitted  it  more  for 
carrying  the  meaning,  which  is  now  assigned  to  it 
in  German  in  distinction  to  Vernunft,  than  un- 
derstanding had  as  distinguished  from  reason.  It 
requires,  of  course,  a  very  minute  historical  re- 
search to  trace  the  steps  by  which  such  words  as 
reason  and  understanding  diverge  in  different  di- 


144  -^y  Autobiography 

rections,  in  the  language  of  the  people  and  in  phil- 
osophical parlance.  This  teaches  us  a  very  im- 
portant distinction,  namely  that  between  the  popu- 
lar development  of  the  meaning  of  a  word,  and  its 
meaning  as  defined  and  asserted  by  a  philosopher 
or  by  a  poet  in  the  plenitude  of  his  power.  Ety- 
mological definition  is  very  useful  for  the  first  stages 
in  the  history  of  a  word.  It  is  useful  to  know,  for 
instance,  that  deus,  God,  meant  originally  bright, 
bright  whether  applied  to  sky,  sun,  moon,  stars, 
dawn,  morning,  dayspring,  spring  of  the  year,  and 
many  other  bright  objects  in  nature,  that  it  thus 
assumed  a  meaning  common  to  them  all,  splendid, 
or  heavenly,  beneficent,  powerful,  so  that  when  in 
the  Veda  already  we  find  a  number  of  heavenly 
bodies,  or  of  terrestrial  bodies,  or  even  of  periods  of 
time  called  Devas,  this  word  has  assumed  a  more 
general,  more  comprehensive,  and  more  exalted 
meaning.  It  did  not  yet  mean  what  the  Greeks 
called  Oeoi  or  gods,  but  it  meant  something  com- 
mon to  all  these  deoi,  and  thus  could  naturally  rise 
to  express  what  the  Greeks  wanted  to  express  by 
that  word.  There  was  as  yet  no  necessity  for  de- 
fining deva  or  0€6<;,  when  applied  to  what  was 
meant  by  gods,  but  of  course  the  most  opposite 
meanings  had  clustered  round  it.  While  a  philo- 
sophical Greek  would  maintain  that  6e6<i  meant 
what  was  one  and  never  many,  a  poetical  Greek  or 
an  ordinary  Greek  would  hold  that  it  meant  what 
was  by  nature  many.     But  while  in  such  a  case 


University  14.5 

philosophical  analysis  and  historical  genealogy 
would  support  each  other,  there  are  ever  so  many 
cases  where  etymological  analysis  is  as  hopeless  as 
logical  analysis.  Who  is  to  define  romantic,  in 
such  expressions  as  romantic  literature.  Etymo- 
logically  we  know  that  romantic  goes  back  finally 
to  Rome,  but  the  mass  of  incongruous  meanings 
that  have  been  thrown  at  random  into  the  caldron 
of  that  word,  is  so  great  that  no  definition  could 
be  contrived  to  comprehend  them  all.  And  how 
should  we  define  Gothic  or  Bomanic  architecture, 
remembering  that  as  no  Goths  had  anything  to  do 
with  pointed  arches,  neither  were  any  Romans  re- 
sponsible for  the  flat  roofs  of  the  German  churches 
of  the  Saxon  emperors. 

Enough  to  show  what  I  meant  when  I  said  that 
Professor  Drobisch,  in  his  Lectures  on  Herbart, 
gave  one  great  encouragement  in  the  special  work 
in  which  I  was  already  engaged  as  a  mere  student, 
the  Science  of  Language  and  Etymology.  If  Her- 
bart declared  philosophy  to  consist  in  a  thorough 
examination  (JBearbeitung)  of  concepts,  or  con- 
ceptual knowledge,  my  answer  was,  Only  let  it  be 
historical,  nay,  in  the  beginning,  etymological;  I 
was  not  so  foolish  as  to  imagine  that  a  word  as  used 
at  present,  meant  what  it  meant  etymologically. 
Deus  no  longer  meant  brilliant,  but  it  should  be 
the  object  of  the  true  historian  of  language  to  prove 
how  Deus,  having  meant  originally  brilliant,  came 
to  mean  what  it  means  now. 


146  My  Autobiography 

For  a  time  I  thought  of  becoming  a  philosopher, 
and  that  sounded  so  grand  that  the  idea  of  prepar- 
ing for  a  mere  schoolmaster,  teaching  Greek  and 
Latin,  seemed  to  me  more  and  more  too  narrow  a 
sphere.  Soon,  however,  while  dreaming  of  a  chair 
of  philosophy  at  a  German  University,  I  began  to 
feel  that  I  must  know  something  special,  something 
that  no  other  philosopher  knew,  and  that  induced 
me  to  learn  Sanskrit,  Arabic,  and  Persian.  I  had 
only  heard  what  we  call  in  German  the  chiming, 
not  the  striking  of  the  bells  of  Indian  philosophy; 
I  had  read  Frederick  Schlegel's  explanatory  book 
Uher  die  Sprache  und  Weisheit  der  Indier  (1808), 
and  looked  into  Windlschmann's  Die  Philosophie 
im  Fortgange  der  Weltgeschichte  (1827-1834). 
These  books  are  hardly  opened  now — they  are  anti- 
quated, and  more  than  antiquated ;  they  are  full  of 
mistakes  as  to  facts,  and  mistakes  as  to  the  conclu- 
sions drawn  from  them.  But  they  had  ushered  new 
ideas  into  the  world  of  thought,  and  they  left  on 
many,  as  they  did  on  me,  that  feeling  which  the  dig- 
ger who  prospects  for  minerals  is  said  to  have,  that 
there  must  be  gold  beneath  the  surface,  if  people 
would  only  dig.  That  feeling  was  very  vague  as 
yet,  and  might  have  been  entirely  deceptive,  nor  did 
I  see  my  way  to  go  beyond  the  point  reached  by 
these  two  dreamers  or  explorers.  The  thought  re- 
mained in  the  rubbish-chamber  of  my  mind,  and 
though  forgotten  at  the  time,  broke  forth  again 
when  there  was  an  opportunity.    It  was  a  fortunate 


University  147 

coincidence  that  at  that  very  time,  in  the  winter  of 
1841,  a  new  professorship  was  founded  at  Leipzig 
and  given  to  Professor  Brockhaus.  Uncertain  as 
I  was  about  the  course  I  had  to  follow  in  my  studies, 
I  determined  to  see  what  there  was  to  be  learnt  in 
Sanskrit.  There  was  a  charm  in  the  unknown,  and, 
I  must  confess,  a  charm  also  in  studying  something 
which  my  friends  and  fellow  students  did  not  know. 
I  called  on  Professor  Brockhaus,  and  found  that 
there  were  only  two  other  students  to  attend  his 
lectures,  one  Spiegel,  who  already  knew  the  ele- 
ments of  Sanskrit,  and  who  is  still  alive  in  Erlan- 
gen,^  as  a  famous  professor  of  Sanskrit  and  Zend, 
though  no  longer  lecturing,  and  another,  Klengel; 
both  several  years  my  seniors,  but  both  extremely 
amiable  to  their  younger  fellow  student.  Klengel 
was  a  scholar,  a  philosopher,  and  a  musician,  and 
though  after  a  term  or  two  he  had  to  give  up  his  study 
of  Sanskrit,  he  was  very  useful  to  me  by  his  good  ad- 
vice. He  encouraged  me  and  praised  me  for  my 
progress  in  Sanskrit,  which  was  no  doubt  more  rapid 
than  his  own,  and  he  confirmed  me  in  my  conviction 
that  something  might  be  made  of  Sanskrit  by  the 
philologist  and  by  the  philosopher.  It  should  not 
be  forgotten  that  at  that  time  there  was  a  strong 
prejudice  against  Sanskrit  among  classical  scholars. 
The  number  of  men  who  stood  up  for  it,  though  it 
included  names  such  as  W.  von  Humboldt,  F.  and 
A.  W.  von  Schlegel,  was  still  very  small.  Even 
'  Herr  Geheimrath  von  Spiegel  now  lives  at  Munich. 


148  My  Autobiography- 

Herder's  and  Goethe's  prophetic  words  produced 
little  effect.    It  is  said  that  when  the  Government 
had  been  persuaded,  chiefly  by  the  two  Humboldts, 
to  found  a  chair  of  Sanskrit  at  the  University  of 
"Wiirzburg,  and  had  nominated  Bopp  as  its  first 
occupant,  the  philological  faculty  of  the  University 
protested  against  such  a  desecration,  and  the  ap- 
pointment fell  through.    It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that 
in  their  first  enthusiasm  the  students  of  Sanskrit  had 
uttered  many  exaggerated  opinions.     Sanskrit  was 
represented  as  the  mother  of  all  languages,  instead 
of  being  the  elder  sister  of  the  Aryan  family.    The 
beginning  of  all  language,  of  all  thought,  of  all  re- 
ligion was  traced  back  to  India,  and  when  Greek 
scholars  were  told  that  Zeus  existed  in  the  Veda 
under  the  name  of  Dyaus,  there  was  a  great  flutter 
in  the  dovecots  of  classical  scholarship.     Many  of 
these  enthusiastic  utterances  had  afterwards  to  be 
toned  down.    How  we  did  enjoy  those  enthusiastic 
days,  which  even  in  their  exaggerated  hopes  were 
not  without  some  use.    Problems  such  as  the  begin- 
ning of  language,  of  thought,  of  mythology  and 
religion,  were  started  with  youthful  hope  that  the 
Veda  would  solve  them  all,  as  if  the  Vedic  Eishis 
had  been  present  at  the  first  outburst  of  roots,  of 
concepts,  nay,  that  like  Pelops  and  other  descend- 
ants of  Zeus,  those  Vedic  poets  had  enjoyed  daily 
intercourse  with  the  gods,  and  had  been  present  at 
the  mutilation  of  Ouranos,  or  at  the  over-eating  of 
Kronos.     We  may  be  ashamed  to-day  of  some  of . 


University  14c) 

the  dreams  of  the  early  spring  of  man's  sojourn  on 
earth,  but  they  were  enchanting  dreams,  and  all 
our  thoughts  of  man's  nature  and  destiny  on  earth 
were  tinged  with  the  colours  of  a  morning  that 
threw  light  over  the  grey  darkness  which  preceded 
it.  It  was  delightful  to  see  that  Dyaus  meant  origi- 
nally the  bright  sky,  something  actually  seen,  but 
something  that  had  to  become  something  unseen. 
All  knowledge,  whether  individual  or  possessed  by 
mankind  at  large,  must  have  begun  with  what  the 
senses  can  perceive,  before  it  could  rise  to  signify 
something  unperceived  by  the  senses.  Only  after 
the  blue  aether  had  been  perceived  and  named,  was 
it  possible  to  conceive  and  speak  of  the  sky  as  active, 
as  an  agent,  as  a  god.  Dyaus  or  Zeus  might  thus 
be  called  the  most  sublime,  he  who  resides  in  the 
aether,  aldept  vaicov  vylri^vyo<;,  the  heavenly  one,  or 
ovpdvto<i  v7raro<i  and  v->^LaTo<ij  the  highest,  and  at 
last  lupiter  Optimus  Maximus,  a  name  applied 
even  to  the  true  God.  When  Zeus  had  once  become 
like  the  sky,  all  seeing  or  omniscient  {i'ir6'<^i,o<i)y 
would  he  not  naturally  be  supposed  to  see,  not  only 
the  good,  but  the  evil  deeds  of  men  also,  nay,  their 
very  thoughts,  whether  pure  or  criminal?  And  if 
so,  would  he  not  be  the  avenger  of  evil,  the  watch- 
er of  oaths  (o/OATto?),  the  protector  of  the  helpless 
(  Uiato'i)  ?  Yet,  if  conceived,  as  for  a  long  time  all 
the  gods  were  conceived  and  could  only  be  con- 
ceived, namely,  as  human  in  their  shape,  should  we 
not  necessarily  get  that  strange  amalgamation  of  a 


150  My  Autobiography 

human  being  doing  superhuman  work — hurhng  the 
thunderbolt,  shouting  in  thunder,  hidden  by  dark 
clouds,  and  smiling  in  the  serene  blue  of  the  sky 
with  its  brilliant  scintillations?  All  this  and  much 
more  became  perfectly  intelligible,  the  step  from 
the  visible  to  the  invisible,  from  the  perceived  to 
the  conceived,  from  nature  to  nature's  gods,  and 
from  nature's  god  to  a  more  sublime  unseen  and 
spiritual  power.  All  this  seemed  to  pass  before  our 
very  eyes  in  the  Veda,  and  then  to  be  reflected  in 
Homer  and  Pindar. 

Some  details  of  this  restored  picture  of  the  world 
of  gods  and  men  in  early  times,  nay,  in  the  very 
spring  of  time,  may  have  to  be  altered,  but  the  pict- 
ure, the  eidyllion  remained,  and  nothing  could  curb 
the  adventurous  spirit  and  keep  it  from  pushing  for- 
ward and  trying  to  do  what  seemed  to  others  almost 
impossible,  namely,  to  watch  the  growth  of  the  hu- 
man mind  as  reflected  in  the  petrifactions  of  lan- 
guage. Language  itself  spoke  to  us  with  a  different 
voice,  and  a  formerly  unsuspected  meaning. 

We  knew,  for  instance,  that  ewig  meant  eternal, 
but  whence  eternal.  Nothing  eternal  was  ever  seen, 
and  it  seemed  to  the  philosopher  that  eternal  could 
be  expressed  by  a  negation  only,  by  a  negation  of 
what  was  temporary.  But  we  now  learnt  that  ewig 
was  derived  in  word  and  therefore  in  thought  from 
the  Gothic  aiwar,  time.  Ewigkeit  was  therefore 
originally  time,  and  "  for  all  time  "  came  naturally 
to  mean  "  for  all  eternity."     Eternity  also  came 


University  151 

from  aeternus,  that  is  aeviternus,  for  time,  i.  e.  for 
all  time,  and  thus  for  eternity,  while  aevum  meant 
life,  lifetime,  age.  But  now  came  the  question,  if 
aevum  shows  the  growth  of  this  word,  and  its  origin, 
and  how  it  arrives  in  the  end  at  the  very  opposite 
pole,  life  and  time  coming  to  mean  eternity,  could 
we  not  by  the  same  process  discover  the  origin  and 
growth  of  such  short  Greek  words  as  ael  and  alel  ? 
It  seems  almost  impossible,  yet  remembering  that 
aevvm  meant  originally  life,  we  find  in  Vedic  San- 
skrit eva,  course,  way,  life,  the  same  as  aevum, 
while  the  Sanskrit  dyush,  likewise  derived  from  t, 
to  go,  forms  its  locative  dyushi.  Ayushi,  or  origi- 
nally dyasi,  would  mean  "  in  life,  in  time,"  and 
turned  into  Greek  would  regularly  become  then. 
ttUi,  lifelong,  or  ever.  It  was  not  difficult  to  find 
fault  with  this  and  other  etymologies,  and  to  ask  for 
an  explanation  of  alkv  and  aie'?,  as  derived  from 
the  same  word  dyus.  It  is  curious  that  people  will 
not  see  that  etymologies,  and  particularly  the 
gradual  development  in  the  form  and  meaning  of 
words,  can  hardly  ever  be  a  matter  of  mathematical 
certainty. 

Historical,  nay,  even  individual,  influences  come 
in  which  prevent  the  science  of  language  from  be- 
coming purely  mechanical.  Pott,  and  Curtius,  and 
others  stood  up  against  Bopp  and  Grimm,  maintain- 
ing that  there  could  be  nothing  irregular  in  lan- 
guage, particularly  in  phonetic  changes.  If  this 
means  no  more  than  that  under  the  same  circum- 


152  My  Autobiography- 

stances  the  same  changes  will  always  take  place,  it 
would  be  of  course  a  mere  truism.  The  question 
is  onlv  whether  we  can  ever  know  all  the  circum- 
stances,  and  whether  there  are  not  some  of  these 
circumstances  which  cause  what  we  are  apt  to  call 
irregularities.  When  Bopp  said  that  Sanskrit  d  cor- 
responds to  a  Greek  8,  but  often  also  to  a  Greek  6, 
I  doubt  whether  this  is  often  the  case.  All  I  say  is, 
if  dcva  corresponds  to  ^609,  we  must  try  to  find  the 
reason  or  the  circumstances  which  caused  so  un- 
usual a  correspondence.  If  no  more  is  meant  than 
that  there  must  be  a  reason  for  all  that  seems  ir- 
regular, no  one  would  gainsay  that,  neither  Bopp 
nor  Grimm,  and  no  one  ever  doubted  that  as  a  prin- 
ciple. But  to  establish  these  reasons  is  the  very 
difficulty  with  which  the  Science  of  Language  has 
to  deal. 

There  is  no  word  that  has  not  an  etymology,  only 
if  we  consider  the  distance  of  time  that  separates  us 
from  the  historical  facts  we  are  trying  to  account 
for,  we  should  sometimes  be  satisfied  with  prob- 
abilities and  not  always  stipulate  for  absolute  cer- 
tainty. Many  of  Bopp's,  Grimm's,  and  Pott's  ety- 
mologies have  had  to  be  surrendered,  and  yet  our 
suzerainty  over  that  distant  country  which  they 
conquered,  over  the  Aryan  home,  remains.  If 
there  is  an  etymology  containing  something  irregu- 
lar, and  for  which  no  reason  has  as  yet  been  found, 
we  must  wait  till  some  better  etymology  can  be  sug- 
gested, or  a  reason  be  found  for  that  apparent  ir- 


University  i^o 

regularity.  If  the  etymological  meaning  of  duhitar, 
daughter,  as  milkmaid,  is  doubted,  let  us  have  a 
better  explanation,  not  a  worse;  but  the  general 
picture  of  the  early  family  among  the  Aryans 
"  somewhere  in  Asia "  is  not  thereby  destroyed. 
The  father,  Sk.  pitar,  remains  the  protector  or 
nourisher,  though  the  i  for  a  in  pater  and  traT'qp 
is  irregular.  The  mother,  mdtar,  remains  the 
bearer  of  children,  though  md  is  no  longer  used  in 
that  sense  in  any  of  the  Aryan  languages.  Pali 
is  the  lord,  the  strong  one — therefore  the  husband; 
vadhu,  the  yoke-fellow,  or  the  wife  as  brought 
home,  possibly  as  carried  off  by  force.  Vis  or  vesa 
is  the  home,  ot/co9  or  vicus,  what  was  entered  for 
shelter.  Svasura,  iKvp6<;,  Socer,  the  father-in-law, 
is  the  old  man  of  the  svas,  the  famuli,  or  the  family, 
or  the  clients,  though  the  first  s  is  irregular,  and 
can  be  defended  only  on  the  ground  of  mistaken 
analogy.  Bhrdtar,  f rater,  brother,  was  the  sup- 
porter; svastar,  soror,  sister,  the  comforter,  &c. 

What  do  a  few  objections  signify?  The  whole 
picture  remains,  as  if  we  could  look  into  the  vesa, 
the  olKo<i  the  veih,  the  home,  the  village  of  the 
ancient  Aryans,  and  watch  them,  the  svas,  the 
people,  in  their  mutual  relations.  Even  compound 
words,  such  as  vis-pati,  lord  of  a  family  or  a  village, 
have  been  preserved  to  the  present  day  in  the  Lith- 
uanian Veszpats,  lord,  whether  King  or  God.  It 
is  enough  for  us  to  see  that  the  relationship  be- 
tween husband  and  wife,  between  parents  and  chil- 


154  My  Autobiography 

dren,  between  brothers  and  sisters,  nay,  even  be- 
tween childrcu-in-law  and  parents-in-law,  had  been 
recognized  and  sanctified  by  names.  That  there 
are,  and  always  will  be,  doubts  and  slight  differences 
of  opinion  on  these  prehistoric  thoughts  and  words, 
is  easily  understood.  We  were  pleased  for  a  long 
time  to  see  in  vidua,  widow,  the  Sanskrit  vidua, 
i.  e.  without  a  man  or  a  husband.  We  now  derive 
vi-dhavd,  widow,  from  vidh,  to  be  separated,  to 
be  without  (cf.  vido  in  divido,  and  Sk.  vidh),  but 
the  picture  of  the  Aryan  family  remains  much  the 
same. 

When  these  and  similar  antiquities  were  for  the 
first  time  brought  to  light  by  Bopp,  Grimm,  and 
Pott,  what  wonder  that  we  young  men  should  have 
jumped  at  them,  and  shouted  with  delight,  more 
even  than  the  diggers  who  dug  up  Babylonian 
palaces  or  Egyptian  temples !  No  one  did  more  for 
these  antiquarian  finds  and  restorations  than  A. 
Kuhn,  a  simple  schoolmaster,  but  afterwards  a  most 
distinguished  member  of  the  Berlin  Academy. 
How  often  did  I  sit  with  him  in  his  study  as  he 
worked,  surrounded  by  his  Greek,  Latin,  and  San- 
skrit books.  In  later  times  also,  when  I  had  made 
some  discoveries  myself  as  to  the  mythological 
names  or  beings  identical  in  Vedic  and  Greek  writ- 
ings, how  pleasant  was  it  to  see  him  rub  his  hands 
or  shake  his  head.  Long  before  I  had  published  my 
identifications  they  were  submitted  to  him,  and  he 
communicated  to  me  his  own  guesses  as  I  communi- 


University  155 

cated  mine  to  him.  Kuhn  would  never  appropriate 
what  belonged  to  anybody  else,  and  even  in  cases 
where  we  agreed,  he  would  always  make  it  clear 
that  we  had  both  arrived  independently  at  the  same 
result. 

It  is  in  the  nature  of  things  that  every  new  gen- 
eration of  scholars  should  perfect  their  tools,  and 
with  these  discover  flaws  in  the  work  left  by  their 
predecessors.  Still,  what  is  the  refined  chiselling  of 
later  scholars  compared  with  the  rough-hewn  stones 
of  men  like  Bopp  or  Grimm?  If  the  Cyclopean 
stones  of  the  Pelasgians  are  not  like  the  finished 
works  of  art  bv  Phidias,  what  would  the  Parthenon 
be  without  the  walls  ascribed  to  the  Cyclops?  It 
is  the  same  in  all  sciences,  and  we  must  try  to  be 
just,  both  to  the  genius  of  those  who  created,  and 
to  the  diligence  of  those  who  polished  and  refined. 

For  all  this,  however,  I  met  with  but  small 
sympathy  and  encouragement  at  Leipzig;  nay,  I 
had  to  be  very  careful  in  uttering  what  were  sup- 
posed to  be  heretical  or  unscholarlike  opinions  in 
the  seminary  of  Gottfried  Hermann,  or  in  the  Latin 
society  of  Haupt.  The  latter  particularly,  though 
he  knew  very  well  how  much  light  had  been  spread 
on  the  growth  of  language  by  the  researches  of 
Bopp,  Grimm,  and  Pott,  and  though  Grimm  was 
his  intimate  friend  of  whom  he  always  spoke  with 
real  veneration,  could  not  bear  his  own  pupils  dab- 
bling in  this  subject.  And  of  course  at  that  time 
my  knowledge  of  comparative  philology  was  a  mere 


156  My  Autobiography- 

dabbling.  If  be  could  discover  a  false  quantity  in 
any  etymology,  great  was  bis  dcligbt,  and  bis  sar- 
casm truly  witbering,  particularly  as  it  was  poured 
out  in  very  classical  Latin.  Gottfried  Hermann 
was  a  different  cbaracter.  He  saw  tbere  was  a  new 
ligbt  and  he  would  not  turn  bis  back  to  it.  He 
knew  how  lightly  his  antagonist,  Otfried  Miiller, 
valued  Sanskrit  in  his  mythological  essays,  and  he 
set  to  work,  and  in  one  of  bis  last  academical  pro- 
grams actually  gave  the  paradigms  of  Sanskrit  verbs 
as  compared  with  those  of  Greek.  He  saw  that  the 
coincidences  between  the  two  could  not  be  casual, 
and  if  they  were  so  ovenvhelming  in  the  mere  termi- 
nation of  verbs,  what  might  we  not  expect  in  words 
and  names,  even  in  mythological  names?  He  by  no 
means  discouraged  me,  nay,  he  was  sorry  to  lose 
me,  when  in  my  third  year  I  w^ent  to  Berlin.  He 
showed  me  great  kindness  on  several  occasions,  and 
when  the  time  came  to  take  my  degree  of  M.A.  and 
Ph.D.,  he,  as  Dean  of  the  Faculty,  invited  me  to 
return  to  Leipzig,  offering  me  an  exhibition  to  cover 
the  expenses  of  the  Degree. 

My  wdsh  to  go  to  Berlin  arose  partly  from  a  de- 
sire to  hear  Bopp,  but  yet  more  from  a  desire  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  Scbelling.  My  inclina- 
tion towards  philosophy  had  become  stronger  and 
stronger;  I  had  my  own  ideas  about  the  mythologi- 
cal as  a  necessary  form  of  ancient  philosophy,  and 
when  I  saw  that  the  old  philosopher  had  advertised 
his  lectures  or  lecture  on  mythology,  I  could  not 


// 


F.    MAX    MULLER 
Aged  Twenty 


University  157 

resist,  and  went  to  Berlin  in  1844.  I  must  say  at 
once  that  Professor  Bopp,  though  he  was  extremely 
kind  to  me,  was  at  that  time,  if  not  old — he  was  only 
fifty-three — very  infirm.  In  his  lectures  he  simply 
read  his  Comparative  Grammar  with  a  magnifying 
glass,  and  added  very  little  that  was  new.  He  lent 
me  some  manuscripts  which  he  had  copied  in  Latin 
in  his  younger  days,  but  I  could  not  get  much  help 
from  him  when  I  came  to  really  difficult  passages. 
This,  I  confess,  puzzled  me  at  the  time,  for  I  looked 
on  every  professor  as  omniscient.  The  time  comes, 
however,  when  we  learn  that  even  at  fifty-three  a 
man  may  have  forgotten  certain  things,  nay,  may 
have  let  many  books  and  new  discoveries  even  in 
his  own  subject  pass  by,  because  he  has  plenty  to  do 
with  his  own  particular  studies.  We  remember  the 
old  story  of  the  professor  who,  when  charged  by  a 
young  and  rather  impertinent  student  with  not 
knowing  this  or  that,  replied:  "  Sir,  I  have  for- 
gotten more  than  you  ever  knew."  And  so  it  is 
indeed.  Human  nature  and  human  memory  are 
very  strong  during  youth  and  manhood,  but  even  at 
fifty  there  is  with  many  people  a  certain  decline  of 
mental  vigour  that  tells  chiefly  on  the  memory. 
Things  are  not  exactly  forgotten,  but  they  do  not 
turn  up  at  the  right  time.  They  just  leave  a  certain 
knowledge  of  where  the  missing  information  can 
be  found;  they  leave  also  a  kind  of  feeling  that  the 
ground  is  not  quite  safe  and  that  we  must  no  longer 
trust  entirely  to  our  memory.     In  one  respect  this 


158  My  Autobiography 

feeling  is  very  useful,  for  instead  of  writing  down 
anything,  trusting  to  our  memory  as  we  used  to  do, 
we  feel  it  necessary  to  verify  many  things  which 
formerly  were  perfectly  clear  and  certain  in  our 
memory  without  such  reference  to  books. 

I  remember  being  struck  with  the  same  thing  in 
the  case  of  Professor  Wilson,  the  well-known  Ox- 
ford Professor  of  Sanskrit.  He  was  kind  enough  to 
read  with  me,  and  I  certainly  was  often  puzzled, 
not  only  by  what  he  knew,  but  also  by  what  he  had 
forgotten.  I  feel  now  that  I  misjudged  him,  and 
that  his  open  declaration,  "  I  don't  know,  let  us 
look  it  up,"  really  did  him  great  honour.  I  still 
have  in  my  possession  a  portion  of  Panini's  Vedic 
grammar  translated  by  him.  I  put  by  the  side  of  it 
my  own  translation,  and  he  openly  acknowledged 
that  mine,  with  the  passages  taken  from  the  Veda, 
was  right.  There  was  no  humbug  about  Wilson. 
He  never  posed  as  a  scholar;  nay,  I  remember  his 
saying  to  me  more  than  once,  "  You  see,  I  am  not  a 
scholar,  T  am  a  gentleman  who  likes  Sanskrit,  and 
that  is  all."  He  certainly  did  like  Sanskrit,  and  he 
knew  it  better  than  many  a  professor,  but  in  his  own 
way.  He  had  enjoyed  the  assistance  of  really 
learned  Pandits,  and  he  never  forgot  to  record  their 
services.  But  he  had  himself  cleared  the  ground — 
he  had  really  done  original  work.  In  fact,  he  had 
done  nothing  but  original  work,  and  then  he  was 
abused  for  not  having  always  found  at  the  first  trial 
what  others  discovered  when  standing  on  his  shoul- 


University  i^g 

ders.  Again,  he  was  found  fault  with  for  not  hav- 
ing had  a  classical  education.  His  education  was, 
I  believe,  medical,  but  when  once  in  the  Indian 
Civil  Service,  he  made  himself  useful  in  many  ways, 
educational  and  otherwise.  When  he  left  India  he 
was  Master  of  the  Mint.  Such  a  man  might  not 
know  Greek  and  Latin  like  F.  A.  von  Schlegel,  or 
any  other  professor,  but  he  knew  his  own  subject, 
and  it  is  simply  absurd  if  classical  scholars  imagine 
that  anybody  can  carry  on  his  Greek  and  Latin  and 
at  the  same  time  make  himself  a  perfect  scholar  in 
Sanskrit.  Such  a  feeling  is  natural  among  small 
schoolmasters,  but  it  is  dying  out  at  last  among  real 
scholars.  I  have  known  very  good  Sanskrit  scholars 
who  knew  no  Greek  at  all,  and  very  little  Latin. 
And  I  have  also  known  Greek  scholars  who  knew 
no  Sanskrit  and  yet  attempted  comparisons  between 
the  two.  When  Lepsius  was  made  a  Member  of 
the  Berlin  Academy,  Lachmann,  who  ought  to  have 
known  better,  used  to  say  of  him :  "  He  knows 
many  things  which  nobody  knows,  but  he  also  is 
ignorant  of  many  things  which  everybody  knows." 
Such  remarks  never  speak  well  for  the  man  who 
makes  them. 

Another  disadvantage  from  which  the  aged 
scholar  suffers  is  that  he  is  blamed  for  not  having 
known  in  his  youth  what  has  been  discovered  in  his 
old  age,  and  is  still  violently  assailed  for  opinions 
he  may  have  uttered  fifty  years  ago.  When  quite 
a  young  man  I  wrote,  at  Baron  Bunsen's  request,  a 


l6o  My  Autobiography 

long  letter  on  the  Turanian  Languages.  It  was  pub- 
lished in  1854,  but  it  still  continues  to  be  criticized 
as  if  it  had  been  published  last  year.  Of  course, 
considering  the  rapid  advance  of  linguistic  studies, 
a  great  part  of  that  letter  became  antiquated  long 
ago;  but  at  the  time  of  its  first  appearance  it  con- 
tained nearly  all  that  could  then  be  known  on  these 
allophylian,  that  is,  non-Aryan  and  non-Semitic 
languages;  and  I  may,  perhaps,  quote  the  opinion 
of  Professor  Pott,  no  mean  authority  at  that  time, 
who,  after  severely  criticizing  my  letter,  declared 
that  it  belonged  to  the  most  important  publications 
that  had  appeared  on  linguistic  subjects  for  many 
years.  And  yet,  though  I  have  again  and  again 
protested  that  I  could  not  possibly  have  known  in 
1854  what  has  been  discovered  since  as  to  a  number 
of  these  Turanian  languages,  everybody  who  writes 
on  any  of  them  seems  to  be  most  anxious  to  show 
that  in  1894  he  knows  more  than  I  did  in  1854.  No 
astronomer  is  blamed  for  not  having  known  the 
planet  Neptune  before  its  discovery  in  1846,  or  for 
having  been  wrong  in  accounting  for  the  irregulari- 
ties of  Saturn.  But  let  that  pass;  I  only  share  the 
fate  of  others  who  have  lived  too  long. 

After  all,  all  our  knowledge,  whatever  show  we 
may  make  of  it,  is  very  imperfect,  and  the  more 
we  know  the  better  we  learn  how  little  it  is  that  we 
do  know,  and  how  much  of  unexplored  country 
there  is  beyond  the  country  which  we  have  explored. 
We  must  judge  a  man  by  what  he  has  done — by 


University  i6i 

his  own  original  work.  There  are  many  scholars, 
and  very  useful  they  are  in  their  own  way,  but  if 
their  books  are  examined,  one  easily  finds  the  stores 
from  which  they  borrowed  their  materials.  They 
may  add  some  notes  of  their  own  and  even  some  cor- 
rections, particularly  corrections  of  the  authors  from 
whom  they  have  borrowed  most;  but  at  the  end 
where  is  the  fresh  ore  that  they  have  raised;  where 
is  the  gold  they  have  extracted  and  coined?  There 
are  cases  where  the  original  worker  is  quite  forgot- 
ten, whereas  the  retailers  flourish.  Well,  facts  are 
facts,  whether  known  or  not  known,  and  the  tri- 
umphal chariot  of  truth  has  to  be  dragged  along 
by  many  hands  and  many  shoulders. 


CHAPTER  V 

PARIS 

My  stay  in  Paris  from  March,  1845,  to  June, 
1846,  was  a  very  useful  intermezzo.  It  opened  my 
mind  and  sliowed  me  a  new  world;  showed  me,  in 
fact,  that  there  was  a  world  besides  Germany, 
though  even  of  Germany  and  German  society  I  had 
seen  as  yet  very  little.  I  had  been  working  away 
at  school  and  university,  but  with  the  exception  of 
my  short  stay  in  Berlin,  I  had  little  experience  of 
men  and  manners  outside  the  small  sphere  of  Dessau 
and  Leipzig. 

I  had  been  at  Berlin  some  nine  months  when, 
in  December,  1844,  my  old  friend  Baron  Hagedorn 
came  to  see  me,  and  invited  me  to  spend  some  time 
with  him  in  Paris.  lie  had  his  own  apartments 
there,  and  promised  to  look  after  me.  At  the  same 
time  my  cousin.  Baroness  Stolzenberg,  whom  I  have 
mentioned  before  as  wishing  me  to  enter  the  Aus- 
trian diplomatic  service,  offered  to  send  me  to  Eng- 
land at  her  expense  as  a  teacher.  I  hesitated  for 
some  days  between  these  two  offers.  I  knew  that 
my  own  patrimony  had  been  nearly  spent  at  Leip- 
zig and  Berlin,  and  the  time  had  come  for  me  to 
begin  to  support  myself;  and  how  was  I  to  do  that 

162 


Paris  163 

in  Paris?  On  the  other  hand,  I  had  long  felt  that 
for  continuing  my  Sanskrit  studies  a  stay  in  Paris, 
and  later  perhaps  in  London  also,  was  indispensable, 
I  had  also  to  consider  the  feelings  of  my  mother, 
whose  whole  heart  was  absorbed  in  her  only  son. 
However,  Sanskrit,  and  my  love  of  an  independent 
life  won  the  day,  and  I  decided  to  accept  Hagedorn's 
proposal.  My  mind  once  made  up,  I  wanted  to  be 
off  at  once,  but  Hagedom  could  not  fix  the  exact 
time  when  he  would  be  free  to  leave,  and  told  me  to 
keep  myself  in  readiness  to  start  whenever  he  found 
himself  free  to  go.  I  accordingly  went  to  stay  with 
my  mother  and  my  married  sister  at  Chemnitz,  and 
indulged  in  idleness  and  the  unwonted  dissipations 
of  parties,  dances,  and  long  skating  expeditions. 
At  last,  feeling  I  could  not  afford  to  wait  any  longer, 
I  went  off  to  Dessau  to  see  Hagedom,  and  found 
to  my  great  disappointment  that  he  was  detained 
by  important  legal  business  in  connection  with  his 
property  near  Munich,  and  could  not  yet  fix  a  date 
for  his  departure.  So  it  was  settled  that  I  was  to 
go  on  to  Paris  without  him,  and  instal  myself  in  his 
apartment,  25,  Rue  Royale  St.  Honore. 

I  got  my  passport  wherein  I  was  carefully  de- 
scribed with  all  my  particular  marks,  and  started 
off  on  my  foreign  travels.  At  first  all  went  well. 
I  stopped  a  few  days  at  Bonn,  and  again  at  Brus- 
sels, where  I  had  my  first  experience  of  hearing  a 
foreign  language  spoken  round  me,  and  found  that 
my  French  was  sadly  deficient.     But  from  Brus- 


164  My  Autobiography 

sels  on,  my  experiences  were  anything  but  agree- 
able. The  journey  to  Paris  took  twenty-four  hours, 
and  we  travelled  day  and  night  without  any  stop 
for  meals.  Most  of  the  passengers  were  well  pro- 
vided with  food  and  wine,  but  had  it  not  been  for 
the  kindness  of  some  old  ladies,  my  fellow-travellers, 
I  should  really  have  starved.  When  we  crossed  the 
frontier  the  luggage  of  all  passengers  was  carefully 
examined.  But  the  douan  ier,  in  trying  to  open  my 
portmanteau,  broke  the  lock,  and  then  began  a  fear- 
ful cursing  and  swearing.  I  was  perfectly  help- 
less. I  could  hardly  understand  what  the  French 
douaniers  said,  still  less  make  them  understand 
what  I  had  to  say.  They  had  done  the  damage,  but 
would  do  nothing  to  remedy  it.  The  train  would 
not  wait,  and  I  should  certainly  have  been  left  be- 
hind if  the  other  travellers  had  not  taken  my  part, 
and  I  was  allowed  to  go  on  to  Paris.  I  looked  a 
mere  boy,  very  harmless,  not  at  all  the  clever  smug- 
gler the  officials  took  me  to  be.  If  they  had  forced 
the  portmanteau  open  they  would  have  found  noth- 
ing but  the  most  essential  wearing  apparel  and  a  few 
books  and  papers  all  in  Sanskrit. 

But  my  miseries  were  not  yet  over,  on  the  con- 
trary, they  became  much  worse.  On  my  arrival  in 
Paris  I  got  a  fiacre  and  told  the  man  to  drive  to 
25,  Rue  St.  Honore;  Roy  ale  I  considered  of  no  im- 
portance; but,  alas!  at  the  right  number  of  the 
Rue  St.  Honore,  the  concierge  stared  at  me,  telling 
me  that  no  Baron  Hagedom  lived  there.     Try 


Paris  165 

Faubourg  St.  Honore,  they  said,  but  here  the  same 
thing  happened.  And  all  this  was  on  a  rainy  after- 
noon, I  being  tired  out  with  travelling  and  fasting, 
and  perfectly  overwhelmed  by  the  immensity  of 
Paris.  I  knew  nobody  at  Paris,  having  trusted  for 
all  such  things  to  Baron  Hagedom,  in  fact  I  was 
au  desespoir.  Then  as  I  was  driving  along  the 
Boulevard  des  Italiens,  looking  out  of  window,  I 
saw  a  familiar  figure — a  little  hunchback  whom  I 
had  known  at  Dessau,  where  he  studied  music  under 
Schneider.  It  was  M.  Gathy,  a  man  well  known  by 
his  musical  writings,  particularly  his  Dictionary  of 
Music.  I  shrieked  Gathy!  Gathy!  and  he  was  as 
much  surprised  when  he  recognized  the  little  boy 
from  Dessau,  as  I  was  when  in  this  vast  Paris  I 
discovered  at  last  a  face  which  I  knew.  I  jumped 
out  of  my  carriage,  told  Gathy  all  that  had  hap- 
pened to  me,  being  all  the  time  between  complete 
despair  and  perfect  delight.  He  knew  Hagedom 
and  his  rooms  very  well.  It  was  the  Hue  Royale 
St.  Honore.  The  concierge  was  quite  prepared  for 
my  arrival,  and  took  us  both  to  the  rooms  which 
were  au  cinquiemey  but  large  and  extremely  well 
furnished.  I  was  so  tired  that  I  lay  down  on  the 
sofa,  and  called  out  in  my  best  French,  Donnez- 
moi  quelque  chose  a  manger  et  a  hoire.  This  was 
not  so  easily  done  as  said,  but  at  last,  after  toiling 
up  and  down  five  flights  of  stairs,  he  brought  me 
what  I  wanted ;  I  restored  myself  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word,  and  then  began  to  discuss  the  most 


i66  My  Autobiography 

necessary  matters  with  M.  Gathy.  He  was  the  most 
charming  of  men,  half  German,  half  French,  full 
of  esprit,  and,  what  was  more  important  to  me,  full 
of  real  kindness  and  love.  As  soon  as  I  saw  him  I 
felt  I  was  safe,  and  so  I  was,  though  I  had  still  some 
battles  to  fight.  First  of  all,  I  had  taken  but  little 
money  with  me,  looking  upon  Ilagedom  as  my 
banker.  Fortunately  I  remembered  the  name  of 
one  of  his  friends,  about  whom  Hagedorn  had  often 
spoken  to  me  and  who  was  in  Rothschild's  Bank. 
I  went  there  to  find  that  he  was  away,  but  another 
gentleman  there  told  me  that  I  could  have  as  much 
as  I  liked  till  Hagedorn  or  his  friend  came  back. 
So  I  was  lucky,  unlucky  as  I  had  been  before. 

The  next  step  I  had  to  consider  was  what  I  should 
do  for  my  breakfast,  luncheon,  and  dinner.  Break- 
fast I  could  have  at  home,  but  for  the  other  meals  I 
had  to  go  out  and  get  what  I  wanted  wherever  I 
could.  It  was  not  always  what  I  wanted,  for  it  had 
to  be  cheap,  and  even  a  dinner  a  deux  francs  in  the 
Palais  Eoyal  seemed  to  me  extravagant.  I  became 
more  knowing  by-and-by,  and  discovered  smaller 
and  simpler  restaurants,  where  Frenchmen  dined 
and  had  arranged  for  a  less  showy  but  more  whole- 
some diet. 

The  impression  that  my  first  experience  of  life 
in  one  of  the  great  capitals  of  the  world  made  on 
me  is  still  fresh  in  my  memory.  My  principal 
amusement  at  first  was  to  go  on  voyages  of  dis- 
covery through  the  town.    The  beauty  of  the  city 


Paris  167 

itself,  and  the  rush  and  crowd  in  the  streets  de- 
lighted me,  and  I  remember  specially  a  few  days 
after  my  arrival,  when  I  went  to  watch  "  le  tout 
Paris  "  going  out  to  the  races  at  Longchamps,  that  I 
was  so  struck  by  the  difference  between  these  streets 
full  of  equii^ages  of  all  sorts,  ladies  in  resplendent 
dresses,  and  well-groomed  gentlemen,  and  the  quiet 
streets  that  I  had  been  accustomed  to  in  Dessau 
and  Leipzig,  that  I  could  hardly  keep  myself  from 
laughing  out  loud.  However,  when  the  novelty 
wore  off  there  was  another  contrast  that  struck  me, 
and  made  me  more  inclined  to  cry  this  time  than  to 
laugh,  and  that  was,  that  while  at  home  I  knew 
almost  every  face  I  passed,  here  in  these  crowds  I 
was  a  stranger  and  knew  no  one,  and  I  suffered 
cruelly  from  the  solitude  at  first. 

I  began  my  work,  however,  at  once,  and  on  the 
third  day  after  my  arrival  I  was  at  the  Bibliothcque 
Royale  anned  with  a  letter  of  introduction  from 
Humboldt,  and  the  very  next  day  was  already  at 
work  collating  the  MSS.  of  the  Kaihaka  Upani- 
shad.  I  had  also  to  devote  some  hours  daily  to  the 
study  of  French;  for,  much  as  I  grudged  these 
hours,  I  fully  realized  that  in  order  to  get  full  ad- 
vantage from  my  stay  in  Paris,  I  must  first  master 
French. 

Next  came  the  great  question,  how  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  Bumouf.  I  did  not  know  the 
world.  I  did  not  know  whether  I  should  write  to 
him  first,  in  what  language,  and  to  what  address.    I 


i68  My  Autobiography- 

knew  Burnouf  from  his  books,  and  I  felt  a  desperate 
respect  for  him.  After  a  time  Gathy  discovered 
his  address  for  me,  and  I  summoned  up  courage  to 
call  on  him.  My  French  was  very  poor  as  yet,  but 
I  walked  in  and  found  a  dear  old  gentleman  in  his 
robe  dc  chamhre,  suiTOunded  by  his  books  and  his 
children — four  little  daughtei-s  who  were  e\'idently 
helping  him  in  collecting  and  alphabetically  arrang- 
ing a  number  of  slips  on  which  he  had  jotted  down 
whatever  had  struck  him  as  important  in  his  reading 
during  the  day.  He  received  me  with  great  civility, 
such  as  I  had  not  been  accustomed  to  before.  He 
spoke  of  some  little  book  which  I  had  published, 
and  inquired  warmly  after  my  teachers  in  Germany, 
such  as  Brockhaus,  Bopp,  and  Lassen.  He  told 
me  I  might  attend  his  lectures  in  the  College  de 
France,  and  he  would  always  be  most  happy  to  give 
me  advice  and  help. 

I  at  once  felt  perfect  trust  in  the  man,  and  was 
really  aux  cieux  to  have  found  such  an  adviser.  He 
was,  indeed,  a  fine  specimen  of  the  real  French 
savant.  He  was  small,  and  his  face  was  decidedly 
German,  with  the  tcte  carree  which  one  sees  so 
often  in  Germany,  only  lighted  up  by  a  constant 
sparkle,  which  is  distinctively  French.  I  must 
have  seemed  very  stupid  to  him  when  I  tried  to 
explain  to  him  what  I  really  wanted  to  do  in  Paris. 
He  told  me  himself  afterwards  that  he  could  not 
make  me  out  at  first.  I  wanted  to  study  the  Veda, 
but  I  had  told  him  at  the  same  time  that  I  thought 


Paris  1 69 

the  Ycdic  hymns  very  stupid,  and  that  I  cared 
chiefly  for  their  philosophy,  that  is,  the  Upanishads. 
This  was  really  not  true,  but  it  came  up  first  in  con- 
versation, and  I  thought  it  would  show  Burnouf 
that  my  interest  in  the  Veda  was  not  simply  philo- 
logical, but  philosophical  also.  Xo  doubt  at  first  I 
chiefly  copied  the  Upanishads  and  their  commen- 
taries, but  Burnouf  was  not  pleased.  "  We  know 
what  is  in  the  Upanishads,"  he  used  to  say,  "  but  we 
w^ant  the  hymns  and  their  native  comments."  I 
soon  came  to  understand  what  he  meant ;  I  carefully 
attended  his  lectures,  which  were  on  the  hymns  of 
the  Kig-veda  and  opened  an  entirely  new  world  to 
my  mind.  We  had  the  first  book  of  the  Rig-veda 
as  published  by  Rosen,  and  Burnouf's  explanations 
were  certainly  delightful.  He  spoke  freely  and  con- 
versationally in  his  lectures,  and  one  could  almost  as- 
sist at  the  elaboration  of  his  thoughts.  His  audience 
was  certainly  small ;  there  was  nothing  like  Kenan's 
eloquence  and  wit.  But  Burnouf  had  ever  so  many 
new  facts  to  communicate  to  us.  He  explained  to 
us  his  own  researches,  he  showed  us  new  MSS. 
which  he  had  received  from  India,  in  fact  he  did 
all  he  could  to  make  us  fellow  w'orkers.  Often  did 
he  tell  us  to  look  up  some  passage  in  the  Veda,  to 
compare  and  copy  the  commentaries,  and  to  let  him 
have  the  result  of  our  researches  at  the  next  lecture. 
All  this  was  very  inspiriting,  particularly  as  Bur- 
nouf, upon  examining  our  work,  was  very  generous 
in  his  approval,  and  quite  ready,  if  we  had  failed,  to 


lyo  My  Autobiography 

point  out  to  us  new  sources  that  should  be  examined. 
He  never  asserted  his  own  authority,  and  if  ever 
we  had  found  out  something  which  he  had  not 
known  before,  he  was  delighted  to  let  us  have  the 
full  credit  for  it.  After  all,  it  was  a  new  and  un- 
known country,  that  had  to  be  explored  and  mapped 
out,  and  even  a  novice  might  sometimes  find  a  grain 
of  gold. 

His  select  class  contained  some  good  men.  There 
were  Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire,  the  famous  translator 
of  Aristotle,  and  for  a  time  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs  in  France,  the  Abbe  Bardelli,  R.  Roth,  Th. 
Goldstlicker,  and  a  few  more. 

Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire  was  a  personal  friend  of 
Burnouf,  and  came  to  the  College  de  France  not  so 
much  to  learn  Sanskrit  as  to  hear  Burnouf's  lucid 
exposition  of  ancient  Indian  religion  and  philoso- 
phy. Bardelli  was  a  regular  Italian  Abbe,  studying 
Sanskrit  at  Paris,  but  chiefly  interested  in  Coptic. 
He  was,  like  St.  Hilaire,  much  my  senior,  but  we 
became  great  friends,  and  he  once  confided  to  me 
what  had  certainly  puzzled  me — his  reasons  for  be- 
coming an  ecclesiastic.  He  had  been  deeply  in  love 
w^th  a  young  lady;  his  love  was  returned,  but  he 
was  too  poor  to  marry,  and  she  was  persuaded  and 
almost  forced  to  marry  a  rich  man.  Dear  old  Abbe, 
always  taking  snuff  while  he  told  me  his  agonies, 
and  then  finishing  up  by  saying  that  he  became  a 
priest  so  as  to  put  an  end  for  ever  to  his  passion. 
"Who  would  have  suspected  such  a  background  to 


Paris  1 7 1 

his  jovial  face?  I  don't  know  how  it  was  that  peo- 
ple, much  my  seniors,  so  often  confided  to  me  their 
secret  sufferings.  I  may  have  to  mention  some 
other  cases,  and  I  feel  that  after  my  friends  are 
gone,  and  so  many  years  have  passed  over  their 
graves,  there  is  no  indiscretion  in  speaking  of  their 
confidences.  It  may  possibly  teach  us  to  remember 
how  much  often  lies  buried  under  a  grave  bright 
with  flowers.  I  saw  Bardelli's  own  grave  many 
years  later  in  the  famous  cemetery  at  Pisa.  R.  Roth 
and  Th.  Goldstiicker  were  both  strenuous  Sanskrit 
scholars.  Both  owed  much  to  Burnouf,  Roth  even 
more  than  Goldstiicker,  though  the  latter  has  per- 
haps more  frequently  spoken  of  what  he  owed  to 
Burnouf.  Roth  was  my  senior  by  several  years, 
and  engaged  in  much  the  same  work  as  myself.  But 
we  never  got  on  well  together.  It  is  curious  from 
what  small  things  and  slight  impressions  our  likes 
and  dislikes  are  often  formed.  I  have  heard  men 
give  as  a  reason  for  disliking  some  one,  that  he  had 
forgotten  to  pay  half  a  cab-fare.  So  in  Roth's  case, 
I  never  got  over  a  most  ordinary  experience.  He 
and  two  other  young  students  and  myself,  having 
to  celebrate  some  festal  occasion,  had  ordered  a  good 
luncheon  at  a  restaurant.  To  me  with  my  limited 
means  this  was  a  great  extravagance,  but  I  could 
not  refuse  to  join.  Roth,  to  my  great  surprise  and, 
I  may  add,  being  very  fond  of  oysters,  annoyance, 
took  a  very  unfair  share  of  that  delicacy,  and  when- 
ever I  met  him  in  after  life,  whether  in  person  or 


172  My  Autobiography 

in  writing,  this  incident  would  always  crop  up  in 
my  mind;  and  when  later  on  he  offered  to  join  me 
in  editing  the  Rig-veda,  I  declined,  perhaps  inflii- 
enced  bj  that  early  impression  which  I  could  not 
get  rid  of.  I  blame  myself  for  so  foolish  a  preju- 
dice, but  it  shows  what  creatures  of  circumstance 
we  are. 

With  Goldstiicker  I  was  far  more  intimate.  He 
was  some  years  older  than  myself  and  quite  inde- 
pendent as  far  as  money  went.  He  knew  how  small 
mj  means  were,  and  would  gladly  have  lent  me 
money.  But  through  the  whole  of  my  life  I  never 
borrowed  from  my  friends,  or  in  fact  from  anybody, 
though  I  was  forced  sometimes  when  very  hard  up 
for  ready  money,  and  when  I  knew  that  money  was 
due  to  me  but  had  not  arrived  when  I  expected  it, 
to  apply  to  some  friend  for  a  temporary  advance.  I 
will  try  and  recall  the  lines  in  which  I  once  applied 
to  Gathy  for  such  a  loan. 

Versuch'  ich's  wohl,  mein  herzgeliebter  Gathy, 

Mit  schineichelndem  Sonnet  Sie  anzupumpen  ? 

Ich  bitte  nicht  um  schwere  Goldesklumpen, 

Ich  bitte  nur  um  etliche  Ducati. 

Auch  zahr  ich  "wieder  ultimo  Monati. 

Auf  Wiedersehn  bei  Morel  und  Frascatl 

Und  Nachsicht  ftlr  den  Brief,  den  allzu  plumpen  I 

Zwar  reiche  Nabobs  sind  die  braven  Inder, 

Doch  arme  Teufel  die  Indianisten  ! 

Reich  sind  hienieden  schon  die  Heiden-Kinder, 

Doch  selig  werden  nur  die  armen  Christen  1 

Reimsucher  bin  ich,  doch  kein  Reimefinder, 

Und  sails  critique  sind  all  die  Sanscritisten. 


Paris 


173 


This  kind  of  negotiating  a  loan  I  have  to  confess 
to,  but  the  idea  of  borrowing  money,  without  know- 
ing when  I  could  repay  it,  never  entered  my  mind. 
Relations  who  could  have  helped  me  I  had  none, 
and  nothing  remained  to  me  but  to  work  for  others. 
Indeed  my  want  of  money  soon  began  to  cause  me 
very  serious  anxiety  in  Paris.  Little  as  I  spent,  my 
funds  became  lower  and  lower.  I  did  not,  like  many 
other  scholars,  receive  help  from  my  Government. 
I  had  mapped  out  my  course  for  myself,  and  instead 
of  taking  to  teaching  on  leaving  the  University,  had 
settled  to  come  to  Paris  and  continue  my  Sanskrit 
studies,  and  it  was  in  my  own  hands  whether  I 
should  swim  or  sink.  It  was,  indeed,  a  hard  strug- 
gle, far  harder  than  those  who  have  known  me  in 
later  life  would  believe.  All  I  could  do  to  earn  a 
little  money  was  to  copy  and  collate  MSS.  for  other 
people.  I  might  indeed  have  given  private  lessons, 
but  I  have  ahvays  had  a  strong  objection  to  that 
form  of  drudgery,  and  would  rather  sit  up  a  whole 
night  copying  than  give  an  hour  to  my  pupils.  My 
plan  was  as  follows :  to  sit  up  the  whole  of  one  night, 
to  take  about  three  hours'  rest  the  next  night,  but 
without  undressing,  and  then  to  take  a  good  night's 
rest  the  third  night,  and  start  over  again.  It  was  a 
hard  fight,  and  cannot  have  been  very  good  for  me 
physically,  but  I  do  not  regret  it  now. 

Often  did  I  go  without  my  dinner,  being  quite 
satisfied  with  boiled  eggs  and  bread  and  butter, 
which  I  could  have  at  home  without  toiling  down 


174  My  Autobiography 

and  toiling  up  five  flights  of  stairs  that  led  to  my 
room.  Sometimes  I  went  with  some  of  my  young 
friends  hors  de  la  harriere,  that  is,  outside  Paris, 
outside  the  barrier  where  the  octroi  has  to  be  paid 
on  meat,  wine,  (fee.  Here  the  food  was  certainly 
better  for  the  price  I  could  afford  to  pay,  but  the  so- 
ciety was  sometimes  peculiar.  I  remember  once  see- 
ing a  strange  lady  sitting  not  very  far  from  me, 
who  was  the  well-known  Louve  of  Eugene  Sue's 
Mysteres  de  Paris.  One  of  my  companions  on 
these  expeditions  was  Karl  de  Schloezer,  who  was 
then  studying  Arabic  in  Paris.  He  was  always 
cheerful  and  amusing,  and  a  delightful  companion. 
He  knew  much  more  of  the  world  than  I  did,  and 
often  sui-prised  me  by  his  diplomatic  wisdom.  "  Let 
us  stand  up  for  each  other,"  he  said  one  day;  "  you 
say  all  the  good  you  can  of  me,  I  saying  all  the  good 
I  can  of  you."  I  became  very  fierce  at  the  time, 
charging  him  with  hypocrisy  and  I  do  not  know 
what.  He,  however,  took  it  all  in  good  part,  and 
we  remained  friends  all  the  time  he  was  at  Paris, 
and  indeed  to  the  day  of  his  death.  He  was  very 
fond  of  music,  but  I  was,  perhaps,  the  better  per- 
former on  the  pianoforte.  He  had  invited  me,  a 
violin,  and  violoncello,  to  play  some  of  Mozart's  and 
Beethoven's  Sonatas.  Alas!  when  we  found  that 
he  murdered  his  part,  I  sat  down  and  played  the 
whole  evening,  leaving  him  to  listen,  not,  I  fear,  in 
the  best  of  moods.  He  took  his  revenge,  however; 
and  the  next  time  he  asked  me  and  the  two  other 


Paris  iy5 

musicians  to  his  room,  we  found  indeed  everything 
ready  for  us  to  play,  but  our  host  was  nowhere  to 
be  found.  He  maintained  that  he  had  been  called 
away;  I  am  certain,  however,  that  the  little  trick 
was  played  on  purpose. 

He  afterwards  entered  the  Prussian  diplomatic 
service  and  was  the  protege  of  the  Princess  of  Prus- 
sia, afterwards  the  Empress  of  Germany.  That  was 
enough  to  make  Bismarck  dislike  him,  and  when 
Schloezer  served  as  Secretary  of  Legation  under 
Bismarck  as  Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg,  he  com- 
mitted the  outrage  of  challenging  his  chief  to  a  duel. 
Bismarck  declined,  nor  would  it,  according  to  diplo- 
matic etiquette,  have  been  possible  for  him  not  to 
decline.  Later  on,  however,  Schloezer  was  placed 
en  disponihilite,  that  is  to  say,  he  was  politely  dis- 
missed. He  had  to  pay  a  kind  of  farewell  visit  to 
Bismarck,  who  was  then  omnipotent.  Being  asked 
by  Bismarck  what  he  intended  to  do,  and  whether 
he  could  be  of  any  service  to  him,  Schloezer  said 
very  quietly,  "  Yes,  your  Excellency,  I  shall  take 
to  writing  my  Memoirs,  and  you  know  that  I  have 
seen  much  in  my  time  which  many  people  will  be 
interested  to  learn."  Bismarck  was  quiet  for  a  time, 
looking  at  some  papers,  and  then  remarked  quite 
imconcernedly,  "  You  would  not  care  to  go  to  the 
United  States  as  Minister?  "  "  I  am  ready  to  go 
to-morrow,"  replied  Schloezer,  and  having  carried 
his  point,  having  in  fact  outwitted  Bismarck,  he 
started  at  once  for  Washington.     Bismarck  knew 


iy6  My  Autobiography 

that  Schloezer  could  wield  a  sharp  pen,  and  there 
was  a  time  when  he  was  sensitive  to  such  pen-pricks. 
They  did  not  see  much  of  each  other  afterwards, 
but,  owing  to  the  protection  of  the  Empress,  Schloe- 
zer was  later  accredited  as  Prussian  envoy  to  the 
Pope,  and  died  too  soon  for  his  friends  in  beautiful 
Italy. 

One  of  my  oldest  friends  at  Paris  w^as  a  Baron 
d'Eckstein,  a  kind  of  diplomatic  agent  who  knew 
everybody  in  Paris,  and  wrote  for  the  newspapers, 
French  and  German.    He  had,  I  believe,  a  pension 
from  the  French  Government,  and  was,  as  a  Roman 
Catholic,  strongly  allied  with  the  Clerical  Party. 
This  did  not  concern  me.    What  concerned  me  was 
his  love  of  Sanskrit  and  the  ancient  religion  of 
India.    He  would  sit  with  me  for  hours,  or  take  me 
to  dine  with  him  at  a  restaurant,  discussing  all  the 
time  the  Vedas  and  the  Upanishad  and  the  Vedanta 
philosophy.     There  are  several  articles  of  his  writ- 
ten at  this  time  in  the  Journal  Asiatique,  and  I  was 
especially  grateful  to  him,  for  he  gave  me  plenty 
of  work  to  do,  particularly  in  the  way  of  copying 
Sanskrit  MSB.  for  him,  and  he  paid  me  well  and  so 
helped  me  to  keep  afloat  in  Paris.    Knowing  as  he 
did  everybody,  he  was  very  anxious  to  introduce 
me  to  his  friends,  such  as  George  Sand,  Lamennais, 
the  Comtesse  d'Agoult  (Daniel  Stem),  Lamartine, 
Victor  Hugo,  and  others;    but  I  much  preferred 
half  an  hour  with  him  or  with  Bumouf  to  paying 
formal  visits.     I  heard  afterwards  many  imkind 


Paris 


177 


things  about  Baron  d'Eckstein's  political  and  cleri- 
cal opinions,  but  though  in  becoming  a  convert  to 
Roman  Catholicism  he  may  have  shown  weakness, 
and  as  a  political  writer  may  have  been  influenced 
by  his  near  friends  and  patrons,  I  never  found  him 
otherwise  than  kind,  tolerant,  and  trustworthy.  His 
life  was  to  have  been  written  by  Professor  Win- 
dischmann,  but  he  too  died;  and  who  knows  what 
may  have  become  of  the  curious  memoirs  which  he 
left?  At  the  time  of  the  February  revolution  in 
1848,  he  was  in  the  very  midst  of  it.  He  knew 
Lamartine,  who  was  the  hero  of  the  day,  though  of 
a  few  days  only.  He  attended  meetings  with  La- 
martine, Odilon,  Barrot,  and  others,  and  he  assured 
me  that  there  would  be  no  revolution,  because  no- 
body was  prepared  for  it. 

Lamartine  who  had  been  asked  by  his  friends, 
all  of  them  royalists  and  friends  of  order,  whether 
he  would,  in  case  of  necessity,  undertake  to  form 
a  ministry  under  the  Duchesse  d'Orleans  as  regent, 
scouted  such  an  idea  at  first,  but  at  last  promised 
to  be  ready  if  he  were  wanted.  The  time  came  soon- 
er than  he  expected,  and  the  Duchesse  d'Orleans 
counted  on  him  when  she  went  to  the  Chamber  and 
her  Regency  was  proclaimed.  Lamartine  was  then 
so  popular  that  he  might  have  saved  the  situation. 
But  the  mob  broke  into  the  Chamber,  shots  were 
fired,  and  there  was  no  Lamartine.  The  Duchesse 
d'Orleans  had  to  fly,  and  fortunately  escaped  under 
the  protection  of  the  Due  de  l^emours,  the  only  son 


lyS  My  Autobiography 

of  Louis  Philippe  then  in  Paris,  and  the  dynasty 
of  the  Orleans  was  lost — never  to  return.  Baron 
d'Eckstein  lost  many  of  his  influential  friends  at 
that  time,  possibly  his  pension  also,  but  he  had 
enough  to  live  upon,  and  he  died  at  last  as  a  very 
old  man  in  a  Roman  Catholic  monastery,  a  most 
interesting  and  charming  man,  whose  memoirs 
would  certainly  have  been  very  valuable. 

But  to  return  to  Burnouf,  I  never  can  adequately 
express  my  debt  of  gratitude  to  him.  He  was  of 
the  greatest  assistance  to  me  in  clearing  my  thoughts 
and  directing  them  into  one  channel.  "  Either  one 
thing  or  the  other,"  he  said.  "  Either  study  Indian 
philosophy  and  begin  with  the  TJpanishads  and  San- 
kara's  commentary,  or  study  Indian  religion  and 
keep  to  the  Rig-veda,  and  copy  the  hymns  and 
Sayana's  commentary,  and  then  you  will  be  our 
great  benefactor."  A  great  benefactor!  that  was 
too  much  for  me,  a  mere  dwarf  in  the  presence  of 
giants.  But  Burnouf's  words  confirmed  me  more 
and  more  in  my  desire  to  give  myself  up  to  the 
Yeda. 

Burnouf  told  me  not  only  what  Vedic  MSS.  there 
were  at  the  Bibliotheque  Roy  ale,  he  also  brought 
me  his  own  MSS.  and  lent  them  to  me  to  copy,  with 
the  condition,  however,  that  I  should  not  smoke 
while  working  at  them.  He  himself  did  not  smoke, 
and  could  not  bear  the  smell  of  smoke,  and  he 
showed  me  several  of  his  MSS.  which  had  become 
quite  useless  to  him,  because  they  smelt  of  stale 


Paris  1 79 

tobacco  smoke.  I  did  all  I  could  to  guard  these 
sacred  treasures  against  such  profanation. 

Another  and  even  more  useful  warning  came  to 
me  from  Bumouf.  "  Don't  publish  extracts  from 
the  commentary  only,"  he  said ;  "  if  you  do,  you 
will  publish  what  is  easy  to  read,  and  leave  out  what 
is  difficult."  I  certainly  thought  that  extracts 
would  be  sufficient,  but  I  soon  found  out  that  here 
also  Burnouf  was  right,  though  there  was  always 
the  fear  that  I  should  never  find  a  publisher  for  so 
immense  a  work.  This  fear  I  confided  to  Burnouf, 
but  he  always  maintained  his  hopeful  view.  "  The 
commentary  must  be  published,  depend  upon  it, 
and  it  will  be,"  he  said. 

So  I  stuck  to  it  and  went  on  copying  and  collat- 
ing my  Sanskrit  MSS.,  always  trusting  that  a  pub- 
lisher would  turn  up  at  the  proper  time.  I  had,  of 
course,  to  do  all  the  drudgery  for  myself,  and  I  soon 
found  out  that  it  was  not  in  human  nature,  at  least 
not  in  my  nature,  to  copy  Sanskrit  from  a  MS.  even 
for  three  or  four  hours  without  mistakes.  To  my 
great  disappointment  I  found  mistakes  whenever 
I  collated  my  copy  with  the  original.  I  found  that 
like  the  copyists  of  classical  MSS.  my  eye  had 
wandered  from  one  line  to  another  where  the  same 
word  occurred,  that  I  had  left  out  a  word  when  the 
next  word  ended  with  the  same  termination,  nay 
that  I  had  even  left  out  whole  lines.  Hence  I  had 
either  to  collate  my  own  copy,  which  was  very  te- 
dious, or  invent  some  new  process.    This  new  process 


i8o  My  Autobiography 

I  discovered  by  using  transparent  paper,  and  thu3 
tracing  every  letter.  I  had  some  excellent  papier 
vegetal  made  for  me,  and,  instead  of  copying,  traced 
the  whole  Sanskrit  MS.  This  had  the  great  ad- 
vantage that  nothing  could  be  left  out,  and  that 
when  the  original  was  smudged  and  doubtful  I 
could  carefully  trace  whatever  was  clear  and  visible 
through  the  transparent  paper.  At  first  I  confess 
my  work  was  slow,  but  soon  it  went  as  rapidly  as 
copying,  and  it  was  even  less  fatiguing  to  the  eyes 
than  the  constant  looking  from  the  MS.  to  the  copy, 
and  from  the  copy  to  the  MS.  But  the  most  im- 
portant advantage  was,  that  I  could  thus  feel  quite 
certain  that  nothing  was  left  out,  so  that  even  now, 
after  more  than  fifty  years,  these  tracings  are  as  use- 
ful to  me  as  the  MS.  itself.  There  was  room  left 
between  the  lines  or  on  the  margin  to  note  the  va- 
rious readings  of  other  MSS. ;  in  fact,  my  materials 
grew  both  in  extent  and  in  value. 

Still  there  remained  the  question  of  a  publisher. 
To  print  the  Rig-veda  in  six  volumes  quarto  of  about 
a  thousand  pages  each,  and  to  provide  the  editor 
with  a  living  wage  during  the  many  years  he  would 
have  to  devote  to  his  task,  required  a  large  capital. 
I  do  not  know  exactly  how  much,  but  what  I  do 
know  is  that,  when  a  second  edition  of  the  text  of 
the  Veda  in  four  volumes  was  printed  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  Maharajah  of  Vizianagram,  it  cost  that 
generous  and  patriotic  prince  four  thousand  pounds, 
though  I  then  gave  my  work  gratuitously. 


Paris  181 

While  I  was  working  at  the  Bibliotheque  Royale, 
Humboldt  had  used  his  powerful  influence  with  the 
king  of  Prussia,  Frederick  William  IV,  to  help  me 
in  publishing  my  edition  of  the  Rig-veda  in  Ger- 
many. Nothing,  however,  came  of  that  plan;  it 
proved  too  costly  for  any  private  publisher,  even 
with  royal  assistance. 

Then  came  a  vague  offer  from  St.  Petersburg. 
Boehtlingk,  the  great  Sanskrit  scholar,  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Imperial  Russian  Academy,  invited  me 
to  come  to  St.  Petersburg  and  print  the  Veda  there, 
in  collaboration  with  himself,  and  at  the  expense  of 
the  Academy.  Burnouf  and  Goldstlicker  both 
warned  me  against  accepting  this  offer,  but,  hopeless 
as  I  was  of  getting  my  Veda  published  elsewhere, 
I  expressed  my  willingness  to  go  on  condition  that 
some  provision  should  be  made  for  me  before  I 
decided  to  migrate  to  Russia,  as  I  possessed  abso- 
lutely nothing  but  what  I  was  able  to  earn  myself. 
Boehtlingk,  I  believe,  suggested  to  the  Academy 
that  I  should  be  appointed  Assistant  Keeper  of  the 
Oriental  Museum  at  St.  Petersburg,  but  his  col- 
leagues did  not  apparently  consider  so  young  a  man, 
and  a  mere  German  scholar,  a  fit  candidate  for  so  re- 
sponsible a  post.  Boehtlingk  wished  me  to  send  him 
all  my  materials,  and  he  would  get  the  MSS.  of  the 
Rig-veda  and  of  Sayana's  commentary  from  the  Li- 
brary of  the  East  India  Company,  and  Paris.  No 
definite  proposition,  however,  came  from  the  Im- 
perial Academy,  but  an  announcement  of  Boeht- 


l82  My  Autobiography 

lingk's  appeared  in  tlie  papers  in  Januar}',  1846,  to 
the  effect  that  he  was  preparing,  in  collaboration 
with  Monsieur  Max  Miiller  of  Paris,  a  complete 
edition  of  the  Rig-veda. 

All  this,  I  confess,  began  to  frighten  me.  For 
me,  a  poor  scholar,  to  go  to  St.  Petersburg  without 
any  official  invitation,  without  any  appointment, 
seemed  reckless,  and  though  I  have  no  doubt  that 
Boehtlingk  would  have  done  his  best  for  me,  yet 
even  he  could  only  suggest  private  lessons,  and  that 
was  no  cheerful  outlook.  The  Academy  would  do 
nothing  for  me  unless  I  joined  Boehtlingk,  but  at 
last  offered  to  buy  my  materials,  on  which  I  had 
spent  so  much  labour  and  the  small  fund  at  my  dis- 
posal. If  the  Academy  could  have  got  the  necessary 
MSS.  from  Paris  and  London,  I  should  have  been 
perfectly  helpless.  Boehtlingk  could  have  done 
the  whole  work  himself,  in  some  respects  better 
than  I,  because  he  was  my  senior,  and  besides,  he 
knew  Panini,  the  old  Indian  grammarian  who  is 
constantly  referred  to  in  Sayana's  Commentary, 
better  than  I  did.  With  all  these  threatening  clouds 
around  me,  my  decision  was  by  no  means  easy. 

It  was  Bumouf's  advice  that  determined  me  to 
remain  quietly  in  Paris.  He  warned  me  repeatedly 
against  trusting  to  Boehtlingk,  and  promised,  if  I 
would  only  stay  in  Paris,  to  give  me  his  support 
with  Guizot,  who  was  then  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  and  very  much  interested  in  Oriental 
studies. 


Paris  183 

Boelitlingk  seems  never  to  have  forgiven  me, 
and  he  and  several  of  his  friends  were  highly  dis- 
pleased at  my  ultimate  success  in  securing  a  pub- 
lisher for  the  Eig-veda  in  England.  Their  lan- 
guage was  most  unbecoming,  and  they  tried,  and 
actually  urged  other  Sanskrit  scholars,  to  criticize 
my  edition,  though  I  must  say  to  their  credit  that 
they  afterwards  confessed  that  it  was  all  that  could 
be  desired. 

Many  years  later,  Boelitlingk  published  a  violent 
attack  on  me,  entitled  F.  Max  Miiller  als  Mythen- 
dichter,  but  I  thought  it  unnecessary  to  take  up  the 
dispute,  and  preferred  to  leave  my  friends  to  judge 
for  themselves  between  me  and  this  propounder  of 
accusations,  the  legitimacy  of  which  he  was  utterly 
unable  to  establish.  However,  as  I  discovered  later 
that  he  accused  me  of  having  acted  discourteously 
tov/ards  the  Imperial  Academy  of  St.  Petersburg, 
with  whom  I  had  never  had  any  direct  dealings, 
and  stated  that  he  had  prevented  that  illustrious 
body  from  ever  making  me  a  corresponding  mem- 
ber, I  thought  it  right  to  offer  an  explanation  to  the 
Secretary,  and  I  have  in  my  possession  his  reply, 
in  which  he  wrote  that  there  was  no  foundation 
whatever  for  Professor  Boehtlingk's  statements. 

However,  the  outcome  of  it  was  that  I  did  not  go 
to  St.  Petersburg,  but  went  on  with  my  work  at  the 
Library  in  Paris,  till  one  day  I  found  it  necessary  to 
run  over  to  London,  to  copy  and  collate  certain 
MSS.,  and  there  I  found  the  long-sought-for  bene- 


184  My  Autobiography 

factors,  who  were  to  enable  me  to  carry  out  the  work 
of  my  life. 

Of  course,  during  my  stay  in  Paris  there  was  no 
idea  of  my  going  into  society,  or  of  buying  tickets 
for  theatres  or  concerts.  I  w^nt  out  to  dinner  at 
some  small  restaurant,  but  otherwise  I  remained  at 
home,  and  viewed  Paris  life  from  my  high  windows, 
looking  out  on  the  Chambre  des  Deputes  on  one 
side,  the  Madeleine  close  to  me  on  the  left,  and  the 
Porte  St.  Martin  far  away  at  the  end  of  the  Boule- 
vards. Baron  d'Eckstein,  as  I  have  said,  was  will- 
ing to  introduce  me  into  society,  but  I  refused  his 
kind  offers.  In  fact,  I  was  more  or  less  of  a  bear, 
and  I  now  regret  having  missed  meeting  many  in- 
teresting characters,  and  having  kept  aloof  from 
others,  because  my  interests  w^re  absorbed  else- 
where. Burnouf  asked  me  sometimes  to  his  house; 
so  did  a  Monsieur  Troyer,  who  had  been  in  India 
and  published  some  Sanskrit  texts,  and  whose 
daughter,  the  Duchesse  de  Wagram,  made  much  of 
me,  as  she  was  very  fond  of  music.  There  were 
some  German  families  also,  some  rich,  some  poor, 
who  showed  me  great  kindness. 

I  was  too  much  oppressed  with  cares  and  anxi- 
eties about  my  life  and  my  literary  plans  to  think 
much  of  society  and  enjoyment.  Even  of  the 
students  and  student  life  I  saw  but  little,  though  I 
was  actually  attending  lectures  with  them.  I  must 
say,  however,  that  the  little  I  did  see  of  student 
life  in  Paris  gave  me  a  very  different  idea  from  what 


Paris  185 

is  generally  thought  of  their  vagaries  and  extrava- 
gances. A  Frenchman,  if  he  once  begins  to  work, 
can  work  and  does  work  very  hard.  I  remember 
seeing  several  instances  of  this,  but  it  is  possible 
that  I  may  have  seen  the  pick  of  the  Quartier  Latin 
only.  One  who  was  then  a  young  man,  preparing 
for  the  Church,  but  already  with  an  eye  to  higher 
flights,  was  Renan.  At  first  he  still  looked  upon 
all  young  Germans  with  suspicion,  but  this  feeling 
soon  disappeared.  I  remember  him  chiefly  at  the 
Bibliotheque  Royale,  where  he  had  a  very  small 
place  in  the  Oriental  Department.  Hase,  the  Greek 
scholar,  Reinaud,  the  Arabist,  and  Stanislas  Julien, 
the  Sinologue,  were  librarians  then.  Hase,  a  Ger- 
man by  birth,  was  most  obliging,  but  he  was  greatly 
afraid  of  speaking  German,  and  insisted  on  our 
always  speaking  French  to  him.  Often  did  he  call 
Renan  to  fetch  MSS.  for  me:  "  Renan,"  he  would 
call  out  very  loudly,  "  allez  chercher,  pour  Mon- 
sieur Max  Miiller,  le  manuscrit  Sanscrit,  numero 
.  .  .  ,"  and  then  followed  a  pause,  till  he  had  trans- 
lated "  1637  "  into  French.  In  later  years  Renan 
and  I  became  great  friends,  but  we  German  scholars 
were  often  puzzled  at  his  great  popularity,  which 
certainly  was  owing  to  his  style  more  even  than  to 
his  scliolarship.  Some  time  later,  when  I  was  al- 
ready established  in  England,  we  had  a  little  contro- 
versy, and  I  printed  a  rather  fierce  attack  on  his 
Grammaire  Semitique.  But  we  were  intimate 
enough  for  me  to  show  him  my  pamphlet,  and  when 


i86  My  Autobiography 

he  wrote  to  me,  "  Pardonnez-moi,  je  n'ai  pas  com- 
pris  ce  que  vous  voulicz  dire,"  I  suppressed  the 
pamphlet,  though  it  was  printed,  and  we  remained 
friends  for  life.  lie  translated  my  first  article  on 
Comparative  Mytholog}-,  and  I  had  a  number  of 
most  interesting  letters  from  him.  It  was  his  wife 
who  did  the  translation,  while  he  revised  it.  That 
Trench  pamphlet  is  very  scarce  now;  my  own 
pamphlet  was  entirely  suppressed;  even  I  myself 
can  find  no  copy  of  it  among  the  rubbish  of  my  early 
%vritings,  and  what  I  regret  most,  I  threw  away  his 
letters,  not  thinking  how  interesting  they  would 
become  in  time. 

With  all  my  work,  however,  I  found  time  to  at- 
tend some  lectures  at  the  College  de  France,  and 
to  make  the  acquaintance  of  some  distinguished 
French  savants  of  the  Institut.  I  went  there  with 
Bumouf,  or  Stanislas  Julien,  or  Eeinaud,  little 
dreaming  that  I  should  some  day  belong  to  the  same 
august  body.  Many  of  my  young  French  friends, 
who  afterwards  became  Memhres  de  VInstitui,  rose 
to  that  dignity  much  later.  I  was  made  not  only  a 
corresponding,  but  a  real  member  of  the  Academie 
des  Inscriptions  et  Belles  Lettres  in  1869,  before 
my  friends,  such  as  G.  Perrot  1874,  Michel  Breal 
1875,  Gaston  Paris  1876,  and  Jules  Oppert  1881, 
occupied  their  well-merited  academical  fauteuils. 
The  struggle  when  I  was  elected  in  1869  was  a 
serious  one;  it  was  between  Mommsen  and  myself, 
between  classical  and  Oriental  scholarship,  and  for 


Paris  187 

once  Oriental  scholarship  carried  the  day.  Momm- 
sen,  however,  was  elected  in  1895,  and  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  his  strong  and  outspoken  political 
antipathies  had  something  to  do  with  the  late  date 
of  his  election. 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  one  result  of  my  seeing 
so  little  of  French  life  was  that  my  French  did  not 
make  such  progress  as  I  expected.  Though  I  was 
able  to  express  myself  tant  bien  que  mal,  I  have 
alw""ays  felt  hampered  in  a  long  conversation.  Of 
course,  the  French  themselves  have  always  been 
polite  enough  to  say  that  they  could  not  have  de- 
tected that  I  was  a  German,  but  I  knew  better  than 
that,  and  never  have  I,  even  in  later  years,  gained 
a  perfect  conversational  command  of  that  difficult 
language. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ARRIVAL  IN  ENGLAND 

While  working  in  Paris  I  constantly  felt  the 
want  of  some  essential  MSS.  which  were  at  the  Li- 
brary of  the  East  India  Company  in  London,  and 
my  desire  to  visit  England  consequently  grew 
stronger  and  stronger;  but  I  had  not  the  where- 
withal to  pay  for  the  journey,  much  less  for  a  stay 
of  even  a  fortnight  in  London.  At  last  (June, 
1846)  I  thought  that  I  had  scraped  together  enough 
to  warrant  my  starting.  At  that  time  I  had  never 
seen  the  sea,  and  I  was  very  desirous  of  doing  so. 
I  well  remember  my  unbounded  rapture  at  my  first 
sight  of  the  silver  stream,  and  like  Xenophon's 
Greeks  I  could  have  shouted,  BaXarra,  BaXarra. 
Once  on  board  my  rapture  soon  collapsed  and  was 
succeeded  by  that  well-known  feeling  of  misery 
which  I  have  so  frequently  experienced  since  then, 
and  I  huddled  myself  up  in  a  corner  of  the  deck. 

There  a  young  fellow-traveller  saw  the  poor 
bundle  of  misery,  and  tried  to  comfort  me,  and 
brought  me  what  he  thought  was  good  for  me,  not, 
however,  -without  a  certain  merry  twinkle  in  his  eye 
and  a  few  kindly  jokes  at  my  expense.    We  landed 

188 


Arrival  in  England  189 

at  the  docks  in  London,  a  real  drizzly  day,  rain  and 
mist,  and  such  a  crowd  rushing  on  shore  that  I 
missed  my  cheerful  friend  and  felt  quite  lost.  In 
addition  to  all  this  a  porter  had  run  away  with  my 
portmanteau,  which  contained  my  books  and  MSS., 
in  fact  all  my  worldly  goods.  At  that  moment  my 
young  friend  reappeared,  and  seeing  the  plight  I 
was  in,  came  to  my  assistance.  "  You  stay  here," 
he  said,  "  and  I  will  arrange  everything  for  you;  " 
and  so  he  did.  He  fetched  a  four-wheeler,  put  my 
luggage  on  the  top,  bundled  me  inside,  and  drove 
with  me  through  a  maze  of  London  streets  to  his 
rooms  in  the  Temple.  Then,  still  knowing  nothing 
about  me,  he  asked  me  to  spend  the  night  in  his 
rooms,  gave  me  a  bed  and  everything  else  I  wanted 
for  the  night.  The  next  morning  he  took  me  out  to 
look  for  lodgings,  which  we  found  in  Essex  Street, 
a  small  street  leading  out  of  the  Strand. 

The  room  which  I  took  was  almost  entirely  filled 
by  an  immense  four-post  bed.  I  had  never  seen 
such  a  structure  before,  and  during  the  first  night 
that  I  slept  in  it,  I  was  in  constant  fear  that  the  top 
of  the  bed  would  fall  and  smother  me  as  in  the 
German  Mdrchen.  When  the  landlady  came  in  to 
see  me  in  the  morning,  after  asking  how  I  had  slept, 
the  first  thing  she  said  was,  "  But,  sir,  don't  you 
want  another  '  pillar  '?  "  I  looked  bewildered,  and 
said:  "  Why,  what  shall  I  do  with  another  pillar? 
and  where  will  you  put  it?  "  She  then  touched  the 
pillows  under  my  head  and  said,  "  Well,  sir,  you 


190  My  Autobiography 

shall  have  another  '  pillar  '  to-morrow."  "  How 
shall  I  ever  learn  English,"  I  said  to  myself,  "  if 
a  '  pillar  '  means  really  a  soft  pillow?  " 

But  to  return  to  my  unknown  friend,  he  came 
every  day  to  show  me  things  which  I  ought  to  see 
in  London,  and  brought  me  tickets  for  theatres  and 
concerts,  which  he  said  were  sent  to  him.  His  name 
was  William  Howard  Russell,  endeared  to  so  many, 
high  and  low,  under  the  name  of  "  Billy  "  Russell, 
the  first  and  most  brilliant  war-correspondent  of 
The  Times  during  the  Crimean  War.  He  remained 
my  warm  and  true  friend  through  life,  and  even 
now  when  we  are  both  cripi^les,  w^e  delight  in  meet- 
ing and  talking  over  very  distant  days. 

I  had  come  over  to  London  expecting  to  stay 
about  a  fortnight,  but  I  had  been  there  working 
at  the  Library  in  Leadenhall  Street  for  nearly  a 
month,  and  my  work  was  far  from  done,  when  I 
thought  that  I  ought  to  call  and  pay  my  respects  to 
the  Prussian  Minister,  Baron  Bunsen.  I  little 
thought  at  the  time  when  I  was  ushered  into  his 
presence  that  this  acquaintance  was  to  become  the 
turning-point  of  my  life.  H  I  owed  much  to  Bur- 
nouf,  how  can  I  tell  what  I  owed  to  Bunsen?  I 
was  amazed  at  the  kindness  with  which  from  the 
very  first  he  received  me.  I  had  no  claim  whatever 
on  him,  and  I  had  as  yet  done  very  little  as  a  scholar. 
It  is  true  that  he  had  known  my  father  in  Italy,  and 
that  Humboldt,  with  his  usual  kindness,  had  writ- 
ten him  a  strong  letter  of  recommendation  on  my 


Arrival  in  England  191 

behalf,  but  that  was  hardly  sufficient  reason  to  ac- 
count for  the  real  friendship  with  which  he  at  once 
honoured  me. 

Baroness  Bunscn,  in  the  life  of  her  husband, 
writes :  "  The  kindred  mind,  their  sympathy  of 
heart,  the  unity  in  highest  aspirations,  a  congeni- 
ality in  principles,  a  fellowship  in  the  pursuit  of 
favourite  objects,  which  attracted  and  bound  Bun- 
sen  to  his  young  friend  (i.  e.  myself),  rendered  this 
connexion  one  of  the  happiest  of  his  life."  I  am 
proud  to  think  it  was  so. 

At  first  the  chief  bond  between  us  was  that  I 
was  engaged  on  a  work  which  as  a  young  man  he 
had  proposed  to  himself  as  the  work  of  his  life, 
namely,  the  ecUtio  princeps  of  the  Eig-veda.  Often 
has  he  told  me  how,  at  the  time  when  he  was  prose- 
cuting his  studies  at  Gottingen,  the  very  existence 
of  such  a  book  was  unknown  as  yet  in  Germany. 
The  name  of  Veda  had  no  doubt  been  known,  and 
there  was  a  halo  of  mystery  about  it,  as  the  oldest 
book  of  the  world.  But  what  it  was  and  where  it 
was  to  be  found  no  one  could  tell.  Mr.  Astor,  a 
pupil  of  Bunsen's  at  Gottingen,  had  arranged  to 
taken  Bunsen  to  India  to  carry  on  his  researches 
there.  But  Bunsen  waited  and  waited  in  Italy,  till 
at  last,  after  maintaining  himself  by  giving  private 
lessons,  he  went  to  Rome,  was  taken  up  by  Brandes 
and  Niebuhr,  the  Pnissian  Ambassador  there,  be- 
came the  friend  of  the  future  Frederick  William 
IV,  and  thus  gradually  drifted  into  diplomacy,  giv- 


192  My  Autobiography 

ing  up  all  hopes  of  discovering  or  rescuing  the 
Rig-veda. 

People  have  hardly  any  idea  now,  how,  in  spite 
of  the  East  India  Company  conquering  and  govern- 
ing India,  India  itself  remained  a  terra  incognitaf 
unapproachable  by  the  students  of  England  and  of 
Europe.  That  there  were  literary  treasures  to  be 
discovered  in  India,  that  the  Brahmans  were  the 
depositaries  of  ancient  wisdom,  was  known  through 
the  labours  of  some  of  the  most  eminent  servants 
of  the  East  India  Company.  It  had  been  known 
even  before,  through  the  interesting  communica- 
tions of  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  in  India,  that 
the  manuscripts  themselves,  at  least  those  of  the 
Veda,  were  not  forthcoming.  Even  as  late  as  the 
times  of  Sir  W.  Jones,  Colebrooke,  and  Professor 
Wilson,  the  Brahmans  were  most  unwilling  to  part 
with  MSS.  of  the  Veda,  except  the  Upanishads. 
Professor  Wilson  told  me  that  once,  when  exam- 
ining the  library  of  a  native  Rajah,  he  came  across 
some  MSS.  of  the  Rig-veda,  and  began  turning 
them  over;  but  "  I  observed,"  he  said,  "  the  omi- 
nous and  threatening  looks  of  some  of  the  Brah- 
mans present,  and  thought  it  wiser  to  beat  a  re- 
treat." Dr.  Mill  had  known  of  a  gentleman  who 
had  a  very  sacred  hymn  of  the  Veda,  the  Gayatri, 
printed  at  Calcutta.  The  Brahmans  were  furious 
at  this  profanation,  and  when  the  gentleman  died 
soon  after,  they  looked  upon  his  premature  death 
as  the  vengeance  of  the  offended  gods.    Colebrooke, 


Arrival  in  England  193 

however,  was  allowed  to  possess  himself  of  several 
most  valuable  Vedic  MSS.,  and  he  found  Brah- 
mans  quite  ready  to  read  with  him,  not  only  the 
classical  texts,  but  also  portions  of  the  Yeda. 
"  They  do  not  even,"  he  writes,  "  conceal  from  us 
the  most  sacred  texts  of  the  Veda."  His  own 
essays  on  the  Veda  appeared  in  the  Asiatic  Re- 
searches as  early  as  1801.  But  people  went  on 
dreaming  about  the  Veda,  instead  of  reading  Cole- 
brooke's  essays. 

It  was  curious,  however,  that  at  the  time  when 
I  prepared  my  edition  of  the  Rig-veda,  Vedic 
scholarship  was  at  a  very  low  ebb  in  Bengal  it- 
self, and  there  were  few  Brahmans  there  who  knew 
the  whole  of  the  Rig-veda  by  heart,  as  they  still 
did  in  the  South  of  India.  Manuscripts  were  never 
considered  in  India  as  of  very  high  authority;  they 
were  always  over-ruled  by  the  oral  traditions  of 
certain  schools.  However,  such  manuscripts,  good 
and  bad,  but  mostly  bad,  existed,  and  after  a  time 
some  of  them  reached  England,  France,  and  even 
Germany.  Portions  of  those  in  Berlin  and  Paris 
I  had  copied  and  collated,  so  that  I  could  show 
Bunsen  the  very  book  which  he  had  been  in  search 
of  in  his  youth.  This  opened  his  heart  to  me  as 
well  as  the  doors  of  his  house.  "  I  am  glad,"  he 
said,  "  to  have  lived  to  see  the  Veda.  Whatever 
you  want,  let  me  know;  I  look  upon  you  as  my- 
self grown  young  again."  And  he  did  help  me, 
as  only  a  father  can  help  his  son. 


194  ^y  Autobiography 

Perhaps  he  expected  too  much  from  the  Veda, 
as  many  other  people  did  at  that  time,  and  before 
the  verba  ipsissima  were  printed.     As  the  oldest 
book  that  ever  was  composed,  the  Veda  was  sup- 
posed to  give  us  a  picture  of  what  man  was  in  his 
most  primitive  state,  with  his  most  primitive  ideas, 
and  his  most  primitive  language.     Everybody  in- 
terested in  the  origin  and  the  first  development  of 
language,  thought,  religion,  and  social  institutions, 
looked  forward  to  the  Veda  as  a  new  revelation. 
All  such  dreams,  natural  enough  before  the  Veda 
was  known,  were  dispersed  by  my  laying  sacri- 
legious hands  on  the  Veda  itself,  and  actually  pub- 
lishing it,  making  it  public  property,  to  the  dismay 
of  the  Brahmans  in  India,  and  to  the  delight  of  all 
Sanskrit  scholars  in  Europe.     The  learned  essays 
of  Colebrooke  in  India,  and  the  extracts  published 
by  Eosen,  the   Oriental  librarian  of  the  British 
Museum,  might  indeed  have  taught  people  that 
the  Veda  was  not  a  book  without  any  antecedents, 
that  it  would  not  tell  us  the  secrets  of  Adam  and 
Eve,  or  of  Deukalion  and  Pyrrha.     I  myself  had 
both  said  and  written  that  the  Veda,  like  an  old 
oak  tree,  shows  hundreds  and  thousands  of  circles 
within   circles;    and   yet   I    was   afterwards   held 
responsible  for  having  excited  the  wildest  hopes 
among  archaeologists,  when  I  had  done  my  best, 
if  not  to  destroy  them,  at  all  events  to  reduce  them 
to  their  proper  level.     Schelling  seemed  quite  dis- 
appointed when  I  showed  him  some  of  the  transla- 


Arrival  in  England  195* 

tions  of  the  hymns  of  the  Rig-veda;  and  Bunsen, 
who  was  still  under  Schelling's  influence,  had  evi- 
dently expected  a  great  many  more  of  such  philo- 
sophical hymns  as  the  famous  one  beginning: 

"  There  was  not  nought  nor  was  there  aught  at 
that  time." 

To  the  scholar,  no  doubt,  the  Veda  remained 
and  always  ^vill  remain  the  oldest  of  real  books, 
that  has  been  preserved  to  us  in  an  almost  miracu- 
lous way.  By  book,  however,  as  I  often  explained, 
I  mean  a  book  divided  into  chapters  and  verses, 
having  a  beginning  and  an  end,  and  handed  down 
to  us  in  an  alphabetic  form  of  writing.  China 
may  have  possessed  older  books  in  a  half  phonetic, 
half  symbolic  writing;  Egypt  certainly  possessed 
older  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  and  papyri;  Baby- 
lon had  its  cuneiform  monuments;  and  certain 
portions  of  the  Old  Testament  may  have  existed 
in  a  written  form  at  the  time  of  Josiah,  when  Hil- 
kiah,  the  high  priest,  found  the  law  book  in  the 
sanctuary  (2  Kings  xxii.  8).  But  the  Veda,  with 
its  ten  books  or  Mandalas,  its  1017  hymns  or 
SuJctas,  with  every  consonant  and  vowel  and  ac- 
cent plainly  written,  was  a  diiferent  thing.  It  may 
safely  be  called  a  book.  N'o  doubt  it  existed  for  a 
long  time,  as  it  does  even  at  present,  in  oral  tradi- 
tion, but  as  it  was  in  tradition,  so  it  was  when 
reduced  to  writing,  and  in  either  form  I  doubt 
whether  any  other  real  book  can  rival  it  in  an- 
tiquity.   More  important,  however,  than  the  purely 


196  My  Autobiography 

chronological  antiquity  of  the  book,  is  the  antiquity 
or  primitiveness  of  the  thoughts  which  it  contains. 
If  the  people  of  the  Veda  did  not  turn  out  to  be 
quite  such  savages  as  was  hoped  and  expected, 
they  nevertheless  disclosed  to  us-  a  layer  of  thought 
which  can  be  explored  nowhere  else.  The  Vedic 
poets  were  not  ashamed  of  exposing  their  fear  that 
the  sun  might  tumble  down  from  the  sky,  and 
there  are  no  other  poets,  as  far  as  I  know,  who  still 
trembled  at  the  same  not  quite  unnatural  thought. 
Nor  do  I  find  even  savages  who  still  wonder  and 
express  their  surprise  that  black  cows  should  pro- 
duce white  milk.  Is  not  that  childish  enough  for 
any  ancient  or  modem  savage?  Mere  chronology 
is  here  of  as  little  avail  as  with  modem  savages, 
whose  customs  and  beliefs,  though  known  as  but 
of  yesterday,  are  represented  to  us  as  older  than 
the  Veda,  older  than  Babylonian  cylinders,  older 
than  anything  written.  When  certain  modern 
savages  recognize  the  relationship  of  paternity, 
maternity,  and  consanguinity,  this  is  called  very 
ancient.  If  they  admit  traditional  restrictions  as 
to  marriage,  food,  the  treatment  of  the  dead,  nay, 
even  a  life  to  come,  this  too,  no  doubt,  may  be 
very  old;  but  it  may  be  of  yesterday  also.  There 
are  even  quite  new  gods,  whose  genesis  has  been 
watched  by  living  missionaries.  The  great  diffi- 
culty in  all  such  researches  is  to  distinguish  be- 
tween what  is  common  to  human  nature,  and  what 
is  really  inherited  or  traditional.     All  such  ques- 


Arrival  in  England  197 

tions  have  only  as  yet  been  touched  upon,  and  they 
must  wait  for  their  answer  till  real  scholars  will 
take  up  the  study  of  the  language  of  living  savages, 
in  the  same  scholarlike  spirit  in  which  they  have 
taken  up  the  study  of  Vedic  and  Babylonian  sav- 
ages. But  we  must  have  patience  and  learn  to 
wait.  It  has  been  a  favourite  idea  among  anthro- 
pologists that  the  savage  races  inhabiting  parts  of 
India  give  us  a  correct  idea  of  what  the  Aryans 
of  India  were  before  they  were  civilized.  It  may 
safely  be  said  of  this  as  of  other  mere  ideas,  that  it 
may  be  true,  but  that  there  is  no  evidence  to  show 
that  it  is  true.  At  ""all  events  it  takes  much  for 
granted,  and  neglects,  as  it  would  seem,  the  very 
lessons  which  the  theory  of  evolution  has  taught 
us.  It  is  the  nature  of  evolution  to  be  continuous, 
and  not  to  proceed  per  saltum.  Therein  lies  the 
beauty  of  genealogical  evolution  that  we  can  recog- 
nize the  fibres  which  connect  the  upper  strata  with 
the  lower,  till  we  strike  the  lowest,  or  at  least  that 
which  contains  what  seem  to  be  the  seeds  and 
germs  of  early  thoughts,  words,  and  acts.  We  can 
trace  the  most  modern  forms  of  language  back  to 
Sanskrit,  or  rather  to  that  postulated  linguistic 
stratum  of  which  Sanskrit  formed  the  most  promi- 
nent representative,  just  as  we  can  trace  the  French 
Vieu  back  to  Latin  Deus  and  Sanskrit  Devas,  the 
brilliant  beings  behind  the  phenomena  of  nature; 
and  again  behind  them,  Dyaus,  the  brilliant  sky, 
the  Greek  Zeus,  the  Roman  lovis  and  luppiter. 


198  My  Autobiography 

the  most  natural  of  all  the  Aryan  gods  of  nature. 
This  is  real  evolution,  a  real  causal  nexus  between 
the  present  and  the  past.  It  used  to  be  called 
history  or  pragmatic  history,  whether  we  take  his- 
tory in  the  sense  of  the  description  of  evolution, 
or  in  that  of  evolution  itself.  History  has  gen- 
erally to  begin  with  the  present,  to  go  back  to  the 
past,  and  to  point  out  the  palpable  steps  by  which 
the  past  became  again  and  again  the  present.  Evo- 
lution, on  the  contrary,  prefers  to  begin  with  the 
distant  past,  to  postulate  formations,  even  if  they 
have  left  no  traces,  and  to  speak  of  those  almost 
imperceptible  changes  by  which  the  postulated  past 
became  the  perceptible  present,  as  not  only  neces- 
sary, but  as  real.  Perhaps  the  difference  is  of  no 
importance,  but  the  historical  method  seems  cer- 
tainly the  more  accurate,  and  the  more  satisfactory 
from  a  purely  scientific  point  of  view. 

In  all  such  evolutionary  researches  language  has 
always  been  the  most  useful  instrument,  and  the 
study  of  the  science  of  language  may  truly  be  said 
to  have  been  the  first  science  which  was  treated 
according  to  evolutionary  or  historical  principles. 
Here,  too,  no  doubt,  intermediate  links  which  must 
have  existed,  are  sometimes  lost  beyond  recovery, 
and  when  we  arrive  at  the  very  roots  of  language, 
we  feel  that  there  may  have  been  whole  aeons 
before  that  radical  period.  Here  science  must 
recognize  her  inevitable  horizons,  but  here  again 
no  surviving  literary  monument  could  carry  us  so 


Arrival  in  England  199 

far  as  the  Yeda.  Hence  its  supreme  importance 
for  Aryan  philology — for  the  philology  of  the 
most  important  languages  of  historical  mankind. 
Other  languages,  whether  Babylonian  or  Accadian, 
whether  Hottentot  or  Maori,  may  be,  for  all  we 
know,  much  more  ancient  or  much  more  primitive ; 
but,  as  scientific  explorers,  we  can  only  speak  of 
what  we  know,  and  we  must  renounce  all  conject- 
ures that  go  beyond  facts. 

In  all  these  researches  no  one  took  a  livelier 
interest  and  encouraged  me  more  than  Bunsen. 
When  some  of  my  translations  of  the  Vedic  hymns 
seemed  fairly  satisfactory,  I  used  to  take  them  to 
him,  and  he  was  always  delighted  at  seeing  a  little 
more  of  that  ancient  Aryan  torso,  though  at  the 
time  he  was  more  specially  interested  in  Egyptian 
chronology  and  archaeology.  Often  when  I  was 
alone  with  him  did  we  discuss  the  chronological 
and  psychological  dates  of  Egyptian  and  Aryan 
antiquity.  Kind-hearted  as  he  was,  Bunsen  could 
get  very  excited,  nay,  quite  violent  in  arguing, 
and  though  these  fits  soon  passed  off,  yet  it  made 
discussions  between  His  Excellency  the  Prussian 
Minister  and  a  young  German  scholar  somewhat 
difficult.  At  that  time  much  less  was  kno^vn  of 
the  earliest  Egyptian  chronology  than  is  now. 
But  I  was  never  much  impressed  by  mere  dates. 
If  a  king  was  supposed  to  have  lived  5,000  years 
before  our  era,  "  What  is  that  to  us?  "  I  used  to 
say,  "  He  sits  on  his  throne  iii  vacuo,  and  there 


200  My  Autobiography 

is  nothing  to  fix  him  by,  nothing  contemporary 
which  alone  gives  interest  to  history.  In  India  we 
have  no  dates;  but  whatever  dates  and  names  of 
kings  and  accounts  of  battles  the  Egyptian  inscrip- 
tions may  give  us,  as  a  book  there  is  nothing  so 
old  in  Eg}'pt  as  the  Veda  in  India.  Besides,  we 
have  in  the  Veda  thoughts;  and  in  the  chronology 
of  thought  the  Veda  seems  to  me  older  than  even 
the  Book  of  the  Dead." 

As  to  the  actual  date  of  the  Veda,  I  readily 
granted  that  chronologically  it  was  not  so  old  as 
the  pyramids,  but  supposing  it  had  been,  would 
that  in  any  way  have  increased  its  value  for  our 
studies?  If  we  were  to  place  it  at  5000  b.  c,  I 
doubt  whether  anybody  could  refute  such  a  date, 
while  if  we  go  back  beyond  the  Veda,  and  come 
to  measure  the  time  required  for  the  formation  of 
Sanskrit  and  of  the  Proto- Aryan  language  I  doubt 
very  much  whether  even  5,000  years  would  suf- 
fice for  that.  There  is  an  unfathomable  depth  in 
language,  layer  following  after  layer,  long  before 
we  arrive  at  roots,  and  what  a  time  and  what  an 
effort  must  have  been  required  for  their  elabora- 
tion, and  for  the  elaboration  of  the  ideas  expressed 
in  them. 

Our  battles  waxed  sometimes  very  fierce,  but  we 
generally  ended  by  arriving  at  an  understanding. 
As  a  young  man,  Bunsen  had  clearly  perceived  the 
importance  of  the  Veda  for  an  historical  study  of 
mankind  and  the  growth  of  the  human  mind,  but 


Arrival  in  England  201 

he  was  not  discouraged  when  he  saw  that  it  gave 
us  less  than  had  been  expected.  "  It  is  a  fortress," 
he  used  to  say,  "  that  must  be  besieged  and  taken, 
it  cannot  be  left  in  our  rear."  But  he  little  knew 
how  much  time  it  would  take  to  approach  it,  to 
suiTound  it,  and  at  last  to  take  it.  It  has  not  been 
surrendered  even  now,  and  will  not  be  in  my  time. 
It  is  true  there  are  several  translations  of  the  whole 
of  the  Kig-veda,  and  their  authors  deserve  the  high- 
est credit  for  what  they  have  done.  People  have 
wondered  why  I  have  not  given  one  of  them  in 
my  Sacred  Books  of  the  East.  I  thought  it  was 
more  honest  to  give,  in  co-operation  with  Olden- 
burg, specimens  only  in  vols,  xxxii  and  xlvi  of  that 
series,  and  let  it  be  seen  in  the  notes  how  much 
uncertainty  there  still  is,  and  how  much  more  of 
hard  work  is  required,  before  we  can  call  ourselves 
masters  of  the  old  Vedic  fortress. 

Bunsen's  interest  in  my  work,  however,  took  a 
more  practical  turn  than  mere  encouragement.  It 
was  no  good  encouraging  me  to  copy  and  collate 
Sanskrit  MSS.  if  they  were  not  to  be  published. 
He  saw  that  the  East  India  Company  were  the 
proper  body  to  undertake  that  work.  Bunsen's 
name  was  a  power  in  England,  and  his  patronage 
was  the  very  best  introduction  that  I  could  have 
had.  It  was  no  easy  task  to  persuade  the  Board 
of  Directors — all  strictly  practical  and  commercial 
men — to  authorize  so  considerable  an  expenditure, 
merely  to  edit  and  print  an  old  book  that  none 


202  My  Autobiography 

of  them  could  understand,  and  many  of  them  had 
perhaps  never  even  heard  of.  Bunsen  pointed  out 
what  a  disgrace  it  would  be  to  them,  if  some  other 
country  than  England  published  this  edition  of  the 
Sacred  Books  of  the  Brahmans. 

Professor  Wilson,  Librarian  of  the  Company, 
also  gave  my  project  his  support,  and  at  last,  not 
quite  a  year  after  my  arrival  in  England,  after  a 
long  struggle  and  many  fears  of  failure,  it  was 
settled  that  the  East  India  Company  were  to  bear 
the  cost  of  printing  the  Veda,  and  were  mean- 
while to  enable  me  to  stay  in  London,  and  prepare 
my  work  for  press. 

I  had  already  been  working  five  years  copying 
and  collating,  and  my  first  volume  of  the  Rig-veda 
was  progressing,  but  it  was  only  when  all  was 
settled  that  I  realized  how  much  there  was  still 
to  do,  and  that  I  should  have  very  hard  work  in- 
deed before  the  printing  could  begin.  I  must  enter 
into  some  details  to  show  the  real  difficulties  I 
had  to  face. 

I  felt  convinced  that  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to 
publish  a  correct  text  of  the  Kig-veda.  That  was 
not  so  difficult,  though  it  brought  me  the  greatest 
kudos.  The  MSS.  were  very  correct,  and  the  text 
could  easily  be  restored  by  comparing  the  Pada 
and  Sanhita  texts,  i.  e.  the  text  in  which  every  word 
was  separated,  and  the  text  in  which  the  words 
were  united  according  to  the  rules  of  Sandhi.  Any- 
body might  have  done  that,  yet  this,  as  I  said,  was 


Arrival  in  England  203 

the  part  of  my  work  for  which  I  have  received  the 
greatest  praise. 

When  my  edition  of  the  Rig-veda  containing 
text  and  commentary  was  nearly  finished,  another 
scholar,  who  had  assisted  me  in  my  work,  and  who 
had  always  had  the  use  of  my  MSS.,  my  Indices, 
in  fact  of  the  whole  of  my  apparatus  criticus, 
published  a  transcript  of  the  text  in  Latin  letters, 
and  thus  anticipated  part  of  the  last  volume  of  my 
edition.  His  friends,  who  were  perhaps  not  mine, 
seemed  delighted  to  call  him  the  first  editor  of  the 
Rig-veda,  though  they  ceased  to  do  so  when  they 
discovered  misprints  or  mistakes  of  my  own  edi- 
tion repeated  in  his.  He  himself  was  far  above 
such  tactics.  He  knew,  and  they  knew  perfectly 
well  that,  whatever  the  vulgus  profanum  may 
think,  my  real  work  was  the  critical  edition  of 
Sayana's  commentary  on  the  Rig-veda.  I  had  de- 
termined that  this  also  should  be  edited  according 
to  the  strictest  rules  of  criticism.  I  knew  what  an 
amount  of  labour  that  would  involve,  but  I  refused 
to  yield  to  the  pressure  of  my  colleagues  to  pro- 
ceed more  quickly  but  less  critically. 

Sayana  quotes  a  number  of  Sanskrit  works 
which,  at  the  time  when  I  began  my  edition,  had 
not  yet  been  edited.  Such  were  the  Xirukta,  the 
glossary  of  the  Rig-veda;  the  xiitareya-brahmana, 
a  very  old  explanation  of  the  Vedic  sacrifice;  the 
Asvalayana  Sutras,  on  the  ceremonial;  and  sundry 
works  of  the  same  character.     Sayana  generally 


204  -^^y  Autobiography 

alludes  very  briefly  only  to  these  works  and  pre- 
supposes that  they  are  known  to  us,  so  that  a  short 
reference  would  suffice  for  his  purposes.  To  find 
such  references  and  to  understand  them  required, 
however,  not  only  that  I  should  copy  these  works, 
which  I  did,  but  that  I  should  make  indices  and 
thus  be  able  to  find  the  place  of  the  passages  to 
which  he  alluded.  This  I  did  also,  but  over  and 
over  again  was  I  stopped  by  some  short  enigmatical 
reference  to  Panini's  grammar  or  Yaska's  glossary, 
which  I  could  not  identify.  All  these  references 
are  now  added  to  my  edition,  and  those  who  will 
look  them  up  in  the  originals,  will  see  what  kind 
of  work  it  was  which  I  had  to  do  before  a  single 
line  of  my  edition  could  be  printed.  How  often 
was  I  in  perfect  despair,  because  there  was  some 
allusion  in  Sayana  which  I  could  not  make  out, 
and  which  no  other  Sanskrit  scholar,  not  even 
Burnouf  or  Wilson,  could  help  me  to  clear  up.  It 
often  took  me  whole  days,  nay,  weeks,  before  I 
saw  light.  A  good  deal  of  the  commentary  was 
easy  enough.  It  was  like  marching  on  the  high 
road,  when  suddenly  there  rises  a  fortress  that  has 
to  be  taken  before  any  further  advance  is  to  be 
thought  of.  In  the  purely  mechanical  part  other 
men  could  and  did  help  me.  But  whenever  any 
real  difficulty  arose,  I  had  to  face  it  by  myself, 
though  after  a  time  I  gladly  acknowledged  that 
here,  too,  their  advice  was  often  valuable  to  me. 
In  fact  I  found,  and  all  my  assistants  seemed  to 


Arrival  in  England  205 

have  found  out  the  same,  that  if  they  were  useful 
to  me,  the  work  they  did  for  me  was  useful  to 
them,  and  I  am  proud  to  say  that  nearly  all  of 
them  have  afterwards  risen  to  great  prominence  in 
Sanskrit  scholarship.  From  time  to  time  I  also 
worked  at  interpreting  and  translating  some  of  the 
Vedic  hymns,  though  I  had  always  hoped  that 
this  part  of  the  work  would  be  taken  up  by  other 
scholars. 

Bunsen  was  also  my  social  sponsor  in  London, 
and  my  first  peeps  into  English  society  were  at  the 
Prussian  Legation.  He  often  invited  me  to  his 
breakfast  and  dinner  parties,  and  when  I  saw  for 
the  first  time  the  magnificent  rooms  crowded  with 
ministers,  and  dukes,  and  bishops,  and  with  ladies 
in  their  grandest  dresses,  I  was  as  in  a  dream,  and 
felt  as  if  I  had  been  lifted  into  another  world. 
Men  were  pointed  out  to  me  such  as  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  Van  der  Weyer, 
the  Belgian  Minister,  Thirlwall,  Bishop  of  St. 
David's  and  author  of  the  History  of  GreecCj 
Archdeacon  Hare,  Frederick  Maurice,  and  many 
more  whom  I  did  not  know  then,  though  I  came 
to  know  several  of  them  aftenvards.  Anybody 
who  had  anything  of  his  own  to  produce  was  wel- 
come in  Bunsen's  house,  and  among  the  men  whom 
I  remember  meeting  at  his  breakfast  parties,  were 
Rawlinswn,  Layard,  Hodgson,  Birch,  and  many 
more.  Those  breakfast  parties  were  then  quite  a 
new  institution  to  me,  and  it  is  curious  how  en- 


2o6  My  Autobiography 

tirely  they  have  gone  out  of  fashion,  though  Sir 
Harry  Inglis,  Member  for  Oxford,  Gladstone, 
Member  for  Oxford,  Monckton  Milnes  (afterwards 
Lord  Houghton),  kept  them  up  to  the  last,  while 
in  Oxford  they  survived  perhaps  longer  than  any- 
where else.  They  had  one  great  advantage,  people 
came  to  them  quite  fresh  in  the  morning;  but  they 
broke  too  much  into  the  day,  particularly  when, 
as  at  Oxford,  they  ended  with  beer,  champagne, 
and  cigars,  as  was  sometimes  the  case  in  under- 
graduates' rooms. 

How  I  was  able  to  swim  in  that  new  stream,  I 
can  hardly  understand  even  now.  I  had  been 
quite  unaccustomed  to  this  kind  of  society,  and 
was  ignorant  of  its  simplest  rules.  Bunsen,  how- 
ever, was  never  put  out  by  my  gaucheries,  but 
gave  me  friendly  hints  in  feeling  my  way  through 
what  seemed  to  me  a  perfect  labyrinth.  He  told 
me  that  I  had  oifended  people  by  not  returning 
their  calls,  or  not  leaving  a  card  after  having  dined 
with  them,  paying  the  so-called  digestion-visit  to 
them.  How  should  I  know?  Nobody  had  ever 
told  me,  and  I  thought  it  obtrusive  to  call.  Nor 
did  I  know  that  in  England  to  touch  fish  with  a 
knife,  or  to  help  yourself  to  potatoes  with  a  fork, 
was  as  fatal  as  to  drop  or  put  in  an  h.  Nor  did  I 
ever  understand  why  to  cut  crisp  pastry  on  your 
plate  with  a  knife  was  worse  manners  than  to 
divide  it  with  a  fork,  often  scattering  it  over  your 
plate  and  possibly  over  the  table-cloth.      I  must 


Arrival  in  England  207 

confess  also  that  fisli-knives  always  seemed  to  me 
more  civilized  than  forks  in  dividing  fish,  but  fish- 
knives  did  not  exist  when  I  first  came  to  England. 
The  really  interesting  side  of  all  this  is  to  watch 
how  customs  change — come  in  and  go  out — and  by 
what  a  slow  and  imperceptible  process  they  are  dis- 
carded. Let  us  hope  it  is  by  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  When  I  first  went  to  Oxford  everybody 
took  wine  with  his  neighbours,  now  it  is  only  at 
such  conservative  colleges  as  my  own — All  Souls 
— that  the  old  custom  still  survives.  But  then  we 
have  not  even  given  up  wax  candles  yet,  and  we 
look  upon  gas  as  a  most  objectionable  innova- 
tion. 

Another  great  difficulty  I  had  was  in  writing 
letters  and  addressing  my  friends  properly  as  Sir, 
or  Mr.  Smith,  or  Smith.  I  was  told  that  the  rule 
was  very  simple  and  that  you  addressed  everybody 
exactly  as  they  addressed  you.  What  was  the  con- 
sequence? When  I  received  an  invitation  to  dine 
with  the  Bishop  of  Oxford  who  addressed  me  as 
"  My  dear  Sir,"  I  wrote  back  "  My  dear  Sir,"  and 
said  that  I  should  be  very  happy.  How  Samuel 
Wilberforce  must  have  chuckled  when  he  read  my 
epistle.  But  how  is  any  stranger  to  know  all  the 
intricacies  of  social  literature,  particularly  if  he  is 
wrongly  informed  by  the  highest  authorities.  I 
must  confess  that  even  later  in  life  I  have  often 
been  puzzled  as  to  the  right  way  of  addressing  my 
friends.      There   is    no   difficulty    about    intimate 


2o8  My  Autobiography 

friends,  but  as  one  grows  older  one  knows  so  many 
people  more  or  less  intimately,  and  according  to 
their  different  characters  and  stations  in  life,  one 
often  does  not  know  whether  one  offends  by  too 
great  or  too  little  familiarity.  I  was  once  writing 
to  a  very  eminent  man  in  London  who  had  been 
exceedingly  friendly  to  me  at  Oxford,  and  I  ad- 
dressed him  as  "  My  dear  Professor  H."  At  the 
end  of  his  answer  he  wrote,  "  Don't  call  me  Pro- 
fessor." All  depends  on  the  tone  in  which  such 
words  are  said.  I  imagined  that  living  in  fashion- 
able society  in  London,  he  did  not  like  the  some- 
what scholastic  title  of  Professor  which,  in  London 
particularly,  has  always  a  by-taste  of  diluted  om- 
niscience and  conceit.  I  accordingly  addressed 
him  in  my  next  letter  as  "  My  dear  Sir,"  and  this, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  produced  quite  a  coldness  and 
stiffness,  as  my  friend  evidently  imagined  that  I 
declined  to  be  on  more  intimate  terms  with  him, 
the  fact  being  that  through  life  I  have  always  been 
one  of  his  most  devoted  admirers.  I  did  my  best 
to  conform  to  all  the  British  institutions,  as  well 
as  I  could,  though  in  the  beginning  I  must  no 
doubt  have  made  fearful  blunders,  and  possibly 
given  offence  to  the  truly  insular  Briton.  Bunsen 
seemed  to  delight  in  asking  me  whenever  he  had 
Princes  or  other  grandees  to  lunch  or  dine  with 
him. 

One  day  he  took  me  mth  him  to  stay  at  Hurst- 
monceux  with  Archdeacon  Hare,  and  a  delightful 


Arrival  in  England  209 

time  it  was.  There  were  books  in  every  room,  on 
the  staircase,  and  in  every  corner  of  the  house,  and 
the  Archdeacon  knew  every  one  of  them,  and  as 
soon  as  a  book  was  mentioned,  he  went  and  fetched 
it.  He  generally  knew  the  very  place  at  which  the 
passage  that  was  being  discussed,  occurred,  and  ex- 
celled even  the  famous  dog,  which  at  one  of  these 
literary  breakfast  parties — I  believe  in  Hallam's 
house — was  ordered  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  to 
fetch  the  fifth  volume  of  Gibbon's  History,  and 
at  once  climbed  up  the  ladder  and  brought  down 
from  the  shelf  the  very  volume  in  which  the  dis- 
puted passage  occurred.  He  had  been  taught  this 
one  trick  of  fetching  a  certain  volume  from  the 
shelves  of  the  library,  and  the  conversation  was 
turned  and  turned  till  it  was  brought  round  to  a 
passage  in  that  very  volume.  The  guests  were,  no 
doubt,  amazed,  but  as  it  was  before  the  days  of 
Darwin  and  Lubbock,  it  led  to  no  more  than  a 
good  laugh.  I  was  surprised  and  delighted  at  the 
honesty  with  which  the  Archdeacon  admitted  the 
weak  points  of  the  Anglican  system,  and  the  dan- 
gers which  threatened  not  only  the  Church,  but  the 
religion  of  England.  The  real  danger,  he  evidently 
thought,  came  from  the  clergy,  and  their  hanker- 
ing after  Rome.  "  They  have  forgotten  their  his- 
tory," he  said,  "  and  the  sufferings  which  the  sway 
of  a  Roman  priesthood  has  inflicted  for  centuries 
on  their  country."  I  think  it  was  he  who  told  me 
the  story  of  a  young  Romanizing  curate,  who  de- 


210  My  Autobiography 

clared  that  he  could  never  see  what  was  the  use  of 
the  laity. 

One  day  when  I  called  on  Bunsen  with  my 
books,  and  I  frequently  called  when  I  had  some- 
thing new  to  show  him,  he  said :  "  You  must  come 
with  me  to  Oxford  to  the  meeting  of  the  British 
Association."  This  was  in  1847.  Of  course  I  did 
not  know  what  sort  of  thing  this  British  Associa- 
tion was,  but  Bunsen  said  he  would  explain  it  all 
to  me,  only  I  must  at  once  sit  down  and  write  a 
paper.  He,  Bunsen,  was  to  read  a  paper  on  the 
"  Results  of  the  recent  Egyptian  Researches  in 
reference  to  Asiatic  and  African  Ethnology  and 
the  Classification  of  Languages,"  and  he  wanted 
Dr.  Karl  Meyer  and  myself  to  support  him,  the 
former  with  a  paper  on  Celtic  Philology,  and  my- 
self with  a  paper  on  the  Aryan  and  Aboriginal 
Languages  of  India.  I  assured  him  that  this  was 
quite  beyond  me.  I  had  hardly  been  a  year  in 
England,  and  even  if  I  could  write,  I  knew  but 
too  well  that  I  could  not  read  a  paper  before  a 
large  audience.  How^ever,  Bunsen  would  take  no 
refusal.  "  We  must  show  them  what  we  have  done 
in  Germany  for  the  history  and  philosophy  of  lan- 
guage," he  said,  "  and  I  reckon  on  your  help." 
There  was  no  escape,  and  to  Oxford  I  had  to  go. 
I  was  fearfully  nervous,  for,  as  Prince  Albert  was 
to  be  present,  ever  so  many  distinguished  people 
had  flocked  to  the  meeting,  and  likewise  some  not 
very  friendly  ethnologists,   such   as   Dr.    Latham, 


Arrival   in  England  21 1 

and  Mr.  Crawford,  known  by  the  name  of  the  Ob- 
jector General.  Our  section  was  presided  over  by 
the  famous  Dr.  Prichard,  the  author  of  that  classi- 
cal work,  Researches  into  the  Physical  History  of 
Manlcind,  in  five  volumes,  and  it  was  he  who  pro- 
tected me  most  chivalrously  against  the  somewhat 
frivolous  objections  of  certain  members,  who  were 
not  over  friendly  towards  Prince  Albert,  Cheva- 
lier Bunsen,  and  all  that  was  called  German  in 
scholarship.  All,  however,  went  off  well.  Bun- 
sen's  speech  was  most  successful,  and  it  is  a  pity 
that  it  should  be  buried  in  the  Transactions  of  the 
British  Association  for  1847.  At  that  time  it  was 
considered  a  great  honour  that  his  speech  should 
appear  there  in  extenso.  ^\"hen  Bunsen  declared 
that  he  would  not  give  it,  unless  Dr.  Meyer's  paper 
and  my  own  were  published  in  the  Transactions 
at  the  same  time,  there  was  renewed  opposition. 
I  was  so  little  proud  of  my  own  essay,  that  I  should 
much  rather  have  kept  it  back  for  further  improve- 
ment, but  printed  it  was  in  the  Transactions,  and 
much  canvassed  at  the  time  in  different  journals. 

I  have  always  been  doubtful  about  the  advan- 
tages of  these  public  meetings,  so  far  as  any  scien- 
tific results  are  concerned.  Everybody  who  pays  a 
guinea  may  become  a  member  and  make  himself 
heard,  whether  he  knows  anything  on  the  subject 
or  not.  The  most  ignorant  men  often  occupy  the 
largest  amount  of  time.  Some  people  look  upon 
these  congresses  simply  as  a  means  of  advertising 


212  My  Autobiography 

themselves,  and  I  have  actually  seen  quoted  among 
a  man's  titles  to  fame  the  fact  that  he  had  been  a 
member  of  certain  congresses.  Another  drawback 
is  that  no  one,  not  even  the  best  of  scholars,  is 
quite  himself  before  a  mixed  audience.  Whereas 
in  a  private  conversation  a  man  is  glad  to  receive 
any  new  information,  no  one  likes  to  be  told  in 
public  that  he  ought  to  have  known  this  or  that,  or 
that  every  schoolboy  knows  it.  Then  follows  gen- 
erally a  squabble,  and  the  best  pleader  is  sure  to 
have  the  laughter  on  his  side,  however  ignorant  he 
may  be  of  the  subject  that  is  being  discussed.  But 
Dr.  Prichard  was  an  excellent  president  and  mod- 
erator, and  though  he  had  unruly  spirits  to  deal 
with,  he  succeeded  in  keeping  up  a  certain  decorum 
among  them.  Dr.  Prichard's  authority  stood  very 
high,  and  justly  so,  and  his  Researches  into  the 
Physical  History  of  Mankind  still  remain  un- 
paralleled in  ethnology.  His  careful  weighing  of 
facts  and  difficulties  went  out  of  fashion  when  the 
theory  of  evolution  became  popular,  and  every 
change  from  a  flea  to  an  elephant  was  explained  by 
imperceptible  degrees.  He  dealt  chiefly  with  what 
was  perceptible,  with  well-observed  facts,  and 
many  of  the  facts  which  he  marshalled  so  well, 
require  even  now,  in  these  post-Darwinian  days  I 
should  venture  to  say,  renewed  consideration.  Like 
all  great  men,  he  was  wonderfully  humble,  and 
allowed  me  to  contradict  him,  who  ought  to  have 
been  proud  to  listen  and  to  learn  from  him. 


Arrival  in  England  213 

But  though  I  cannot  say  that  the  result  of  these 
meetings  and  wranglings  was  very  great  or  valu- 
able, I  spent  a  few  most  delightful  days  at  Oxford, 
and  I  could  not  imagine  a  more  perfect  state  of 
existence  than  to  be  an  undergraduate,  a  fellow, 
or  a  professor  there.  A  kind  of  silent  love  sprang 
up  in  my  heart,  though  I  hardly  confessed  it  to 
myself,  much  less  to  the  object  of  my  affections. 
I  knew  I  had  to  go  back  to  be  a  University  tutor 
or  even  a  master  in  a  public  school  in  Germany, 
and  that  was  a  hard  life  compared  with  the  free- 
dom of  Oxford.  To  be  independent  and  free  to 
work  as  I  liked,  that  was  ever^^thing  to  me,  but 
how  I  ever  succeeded  in  realizing  my  ideal,  I 
hardly  know\  At  that  time  I  saw  nothing  but  a 
life  of  drudgery  and  severe  struggle  before  me,  but 
I  did  not  allow  myself  to  dwell  on  it;  I  simply 
worked  on,  without  looking  either  right  or  left, 
behind  or  before. 

While  at  Oxford  on  this  my  first  flying  visit,  I 
had  a  room  in  University  College,  the  very  college 
in  which  my  son  was  hereafter  to  be  an  under- 
graduate. My  host  was  Dr.  Plumptre,  the  Master 
of  the  College,  a  tall,  stiff,  and  to  my  mind,  very 
imposing  person.  He  was  then  Vice-Chancellor, 
and  I  believe  I  never  saw  him  except  in  his  cap 
and  gown  and  wdth  two  bedels  walking  before  him, 
the  one  with  a  gold,  the  other  with  a  silver  poker 
in  his  hands.  We  have  no  Esquire  bedels  any 
longer!     All  the  professors,  too,  and  even  the  un- 


214  ^y  Autobiography 

dergraduates,  dressed  in  their  mediaeval  academic 
costume,  looked  to  me  very  grand,  and  so  different 
from  the  German  students  at  Leipzig  or  still  more 
at  Jena,  walking  about  the  streets  in  pink  cotton 
trousers  and  dressing-gowns.  It  seemed  to  me 
quite  a  different  world,  and  I  made  new  discoveries 
every  day.  Being  with  Bunsen  I  was  invited  to 
all  the  official  dinners  during  the  meeting  of  the 
British  Association,  and  here,  too,  the  Vice-Chan- 
cellor  acted  his  part  with  becoming  dignity.  He 
never  unbent;  he  never  indulged  in  a  joke  or 
joined  in  the  laughter  of  his  neighbours.  When 
I  remarked  on  his  immovable  features,  I  was  told 
that  he  slept  in  starched  sheets — and  I  believed  it. 
At  one  of  these  dinners.  Prince  Louis  Lucien  Bona- 
parte caused  a  titter  during  a  speech  about  the 
freedom  which  people  enjoyed  in  England.  "  In 
France,"  he  said,  "  with  all  the  declamations  about 
Liberie,  Egalite,  Fraternite,  there  is  very  little 
freedom,  and,  with  all  the  trees  of  liberie  which 
are  being  planted  along  the  boulevards,  there  is 
very  little  of  real  liberty  to  be  found  there!  " 
"  But  you  in  England,"  he  finished,  "  you  have  your 
old  tree  of  liberty,  which  is  always  flowering  and 
showering  peas  on  the  whole  world."  He  wanted 
to  say  peace.  "We  tried  to  look  solemn  but  failed, 
and  a  suppressed  laugh  went  round  till  it  reached 
the  Yice-Chancellor.  There  it  stopped.  He  was 
far  too  well  bred  to  allow  a  single  muscle  of  his 
face  to  move.      "  He  throws  a  cold   blanket  on 


Arrival  in  England  215 

everything,"  my  neighbour  said;  and  my  knowl- 
edge of  English  was  still  so  imperfect  that  I  ac- 
cepted many  of  these  metaphorical  remarks  in  their 
literal  sense,  and  became  more  and  more  puzzled 
about  my  host.  It  was  evidently  a  pleasure  to  my 
friends  to  see  how  easily  I  was  taken  in.  On  the 
walls  of  the  houses  at  Oxford  I  saw  the  letters  F.  P. 
about  ten  feet  from  the  ground.  Of  course  it  was 
meant  for  Fire  Plug,  but  I  was  told  that  it  marked 
the  height  of  the  Vice-Chancellor,  whose  name 
was  Frederick  Plumptre. 

My  visit  to  Oxford  was  over  all  too  soon,  and 
I  returned  to  London  to  toil  away  at  my  Sanskrit 
MSS.  in  the  little  room  that  had  been  assigned  to 
me  in  the  Old  East  India  House  in  Leadenhall 
Street.  That  building,  too,  in  which  the  reins  of 
the  mighty  Empire  of  India  were  held,  mostly  by 
the  hands  of  merchants,  has  vanished,  and  the 
place  of  it  knoweth  it  no  more.  However,  I 
thought  little  of  India,  I  only  thought  of  the  li- 
brary at  the  East  India  House,  a  real  Eldorado  for 
an  eager  Sanskrit  student,  who  had  never  seen  such 
treasures  before.  I  saw  little  else  there,  I  only 
remember  seeing  Tippoo  Sahib's  tiger  which  held 
an  English  soldier  in  his  claws,  and  was  regularly 
wound  up  for  the  benefit  of  visitors,  and  then  ut- 
tered a  loud  squeak,  enough  to  disturb  even  the 
most  absorbed  of  students.  I  felt  quite  dazed  by 
all  the  books  and  manuscripts  placed  at  my  dis- 
posal, and  revelled  in  them  every  day  till  it  became 


2i6  My  Autobiograpliy 

dark,  and  1  had  to  walk  home  through  Ludgato 
Hill,  Cheapside,  and  the  Strand,  generally  carry- 
ing ever  so  many  books  and  papers  under  my  arms. 
I  knew  nobody  in  the  city,  and  no  one  knew  me; 
and  what  did  I  care  for  the  world,  as  long  as  I  had 
my  beloved  manuscripts? 

In  March,  1848,  I  had  to  go  over  to  Paris  to 
finish  up  some  work  there,  and  just  came  in  for  the 
revolution.  From  my  windows  I  had  a  fine  \Tiew  of 
all  that  was  going  on.  I  well  remember  the  pan- 
demonium in  the  streets,  the  aspect  of  the  savage 
mob,  the  wanton  firing  of  shots  at  quiet  spectators, 
the  hoisting  of  Louis  Philippe's  nankeen  trousers  on 
the  flag-staff  of  the  Tuilcries.  AVhen  bullets  began 
to  come  through  my  windows,  I  thought  it  time  to 
be  off  while  it  was  still  possible.  Then  came  the 
question  how  to  get  my  box  full  of  precious  manu- 
scripts, &c.,  belonging  to  the  East  India  Company, 
to  the  train.  The  only  railway  open  was  the  line  to 
Havre,  which  had  been  broken  up  close  to  the  sta- 
tion, but  further  on  \vas  intact,  and  in  order  to  get 
there  we  had  to  climb  three  barricades.  I  offered 
my  concierge  five  francs  to  carry  my  box,  but  his 
wife  would  not  hear  of  his  risking  his  life  in  the 
streets;  ten  francs — the  same  result ;  but  at  the  sight 
of  a  louis  d'or  she  changed  her  mind,  and  with  an 
"  Allez,  mon  ami,  allez  toujours,"  dispatched  her 
husband  on  his  perilous  expedition.  Arrived  in 
London  I  went  straight  to  the  Prussian  Legation, 
and  was  the  first  to  give  Buusen  the  news  of  Louis 


Arrival  in  England  217 

riii]ippc''.s  flight  from  Paris.  Bunsen  took  me  off 
to  see  Lord  Palmerston,  and  I  was  able  to  show 
him  a  buJlet  that  I  had  picked  up  in  my  room  as 
evidence  of  the  bloody  scenes  that  had  been  enacted 
in  Paris.  So  even  a  poor  scholar  had  to  play  his 
small  part  in  the  events  that  go  to  make  up  history. 


CHAPTER  VII 

EARLY  DAYS  AT  OXFORD 

It  had  been  settled  that  my  edition  of  the  Rig- 
veda  should  be  printed  at  the  Oxford  University 
Press,  and  I  found  that  I  had  often  to  go  there 
to  superintend  the  printing,  Kot  that  the  printers 
required  much  supervision,  as  I  must  say  that  the 
printing  at  the  University  Press  was,  and  is,  ex- 
cellent— far  better  than  anything  I  had  known  in 
Germany.  In  providing  copy  for  a  work  of  six  vol- 
umes, each  of  about  1000  pages,  it  was  but  natu- 
ral that  lapsus  calami  should  occur  from  time  to 
time.  What  surprised  me  was  that  several  of  these 
were  corrected  in  the  proof-sheets  sent  to  me.  At 
last  I  asked  whether  there  was  any  Sanskrit  scholar 
at  Oxford  who  revised  my  proof-sheets  before  they 
were  returned.  I  was  told  there  was  not,  but 
that  the  queries  were  made  by  the  printer  himself. 
That  printer  was  an  extraordinary  man.  His  right 
arm  was  slightly  paralysed,  and  he  had  therefore 
been  put  on  difficult  slow  work,  such  as  Sanskrit. 
There  are  more  than  300  types  which  a  printer  must 
know  in  composing  Sanskrit.  Many  of  the  letters 
in  Sanskrit  are  incompatible,  i.  e.  they  cannot  follow 
each  other,  or  if  they  do,  they  have  to  be  modified. 

218 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  219 

Every  d,  for  instance,  if  followed  by  a  t,  is  changed 
to  t ;  every  dh  loses  its  aspiration,  becomes  likewise 
ty  or  changes  the  next  t  into  dh.  Thus  from  hudh  + 
ta,  we  have  Buddha,  i.e.  awakened.  In  writing 
I  had  sometimes  neglected  these  modifications,  but 
in  the  proof-sheets  these  cases  were  always  either 
queried  or  corrected.  When  I  asked  the  printer, 
who  did  not  of  course  know  a  word  of  Sanskrit, 
how  he  came  to  make  these  corrections,  he  said: 
"  Well,  sir,  my  arm  gets  into  a  regular  swing  from 
one  compartment  of  types  to  another,  and  there 
are  certain  movements  that  never  occur.  So  if 
I  suddenly  have  to  take  up  types  which  entail  a 
new  movement,  I  feel  it,  and  I  put  a  query."  An 
English  printer  might  possibly  be  startled  in  the 
same  way  if  in  English  he  had  to  take  up  an  s 
immediately  following  an  h.  But  it  was  certainly 
extraordinary  that  an  unusual  movement  of  the 
muscles  of  the  paralysed  arm  should  have  led  to  the 
discovery  of  a  mistake  in  writing  Sanskrit.  In 
spite  of  the  extreme  accuracy  of  my  printer,  how- 
ever, I  saw,  that  after  all  it  would  be  better  for 
myself,  and  for  the  Veda,  if  I  were  on  the  spot,  and 
I  decided  to  migrate  from  London  to  Oxford. 

My  first  visit  had  filled  me  with  enthusiasm  for 
the  beautiful  old  town,  which  I  regarded  as  an  ideal 
home  for  a  student.  Besides,  I  found  that  I  was 
getting  too  gay  in  London,  and  in  order  to  be  able 
to  devote  my  evenings  to  society,  I  had  to  get  up 
and  begin  work  soon  after  five.     May,  therefore, 


220  My  Autobiography- 

saw  me  established  for  the  first  time  in  Oxford,  in 
a  small  room  in  Walton  Street.  The  moving  of  my 
books  and  papers  from  London  did  not  take  long. 
At  that  time  my  library  could  still  be  accommodated 
in  my  portmanteau,  it  had  not  yet  risen  to  12,000 
volumes,  threatening  to  drive  me  out  of  my  house. 
A  happy  time  it  was  when  I  possessed  no  books 
which  I  had  not  read,  and  no  one  sent  books  to 
me  which  I  did  not  want,  and  yet  had  to  find  a 
place  for  in  my  rooms,  and  to  thank  the  author  for 
his  kindness. 

I  at  once  found  that  my  work  went  on  more 
rapidly  at  Oxford  than  in  London,  though  if  I 
had  expected  to  escape  from  all  hospitality  I  cer- 
tainly was  not  allowed  to  do  that.  Accustomed  as 
I  was  to  the  Spartan  diet  of  a  German  convictoriunij 
or  a  dinner  at  the  Palais  Royal  a  deux  francs,  the 
dinners  to  which  I  was  invited  by  some  of  the  Fel- 
lows in  Hall,  or  in  Common  Room,  surprised  me  not 
a  little.  The  old  plate,  the  old  furniture,  and  the 
whole  style  of  living,  impressed  me  deeply,  partic- 
ularly the  after-dinner  railway,  an  ingenious  inven- 
tion for  lightening  the  trouble  of  the  guests  who 
took  wine  in  Common  Room.  There  was  a  small 
railway  fixed  before  the  fire-place,  and  on  it  a  wagon 
containing  the  bottles  went  backwards  and  forwards, 
halting  before  every  guest  till  he  had  helped  him- 
self. That  railway,  I  am  afraid,  is  gone  now;  and 
what  is  more  serious,  the  pleasant,  chatty  evenings 
spent  in  Common  Room  are  likewise  a  thing  of  the 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  221 

past.  Married  Fellows,  if  they  dine  in  Hall,  return 
home  after  dinner,  and  junior  Fellows  go  to  their 
books  or  pupils.  In  my  early  Oxford  days,  a  mar- 
ried Fellow  would  have  sounded  like  a  solecism. 
The  story  goes  that  married  Fellows  were  not  en- 
tirely unknown,  and  that  you  could  hold  even  a  fel- 
lowship, if  you  could  hold  your  tongue.  Young 
people,  however,  who  did  not  possess  that  gift  of 
silence,  had  often  to  wait  till  they  were  fifty,  before 
a  college  living  fell  vacant,  and  the  quinquagenarian 
Fellow  became  a  young  husband  and  a  young  vicar. 
What  impressed  me,  however,  even  more  than 
the  great  hospitality  of  Oxford,  was  the  real  friend- 
liness shown  to  an  unknown  German  scholar.  After 
all,  I  had  done  very  little  as  yet,  but  the  kind  words 
which  Bunsen  and  Dr.  Prichard  had  spoken  about 
me  at  the  meeting  of  the  British  Association,  had 
evidently  produced  an  impression  in  my  favour  far 
beyond  what  I  deserved.  I  must  have  seemed  a 
very  strange  bird,  such  as  had  never  before  built 
his  nest  at  Oxford.  I  was  very  young,  but  I  looked 
even  younger  than  I  was,  and  my  knowledge  of 
the  manners  of  society,  particularly  of  English 
society,  was  really  nil.  Few  people  knew  what  I 
was  working  at.  Some  had  a  kind  of  vague  im- 
pression that  I  had  discovered  a  very  old  religion, 
older  than  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian,  which  con- 
tained the  key  to  many  of  the  mysteries  that  had 
puzzled  the  ancient,  nay,  even  the  modem  world. 
Frequently,  when  I  was  walking  through  the  streets 


'222  My  Autobiography 

of  Oxford,  I  observed  how  people  stared  at  me,  and 
seemed  to  whisper  some  information  about  me. 
Tradespeople  did  not  always  trust  me,  though  I 
never  owed  a  penny  to  anybody;  when  I  wanted 
money  I  could  always  make  it  by  going  on  faster 
with  printing  the  Rig-veda,  for  which  I  received 
four  pounds  a  sheet.  This  seemed  to  me  then  a 
large  sum,  though  many  a  sheet  took  me  at  first 
more  than  a  week  to  get  ready,  copy,  collate,  under- 
stand, and  finally  print.  If  I  was  interested  in  any 
other  subject,  my  exchequer  suffered  accordingly — 
but  I  could  always  retrieve  my  losses  by  sitting  up 
late  at  night.  Poor  as  I  was,  I  never  had  any  cares 
about  money,  and  when  I  once  began  to  write  in 
English  for  English  journals,  I  had  really  more  than 
I  wanted.  My  first  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
view appeared  in  October,  1851. 

At  that  time  the  idea  of  settling  at  Oxford,  of 
remaining  in  this  academic  paradise,  never  entered 
my  head.  I  was  here  to  print  my  Rig-veda  and 
work  at  the  Bodleian ;  that  I  should  in  a  few  yeara 
be  an  M.A.  of  Christ  Church,  a  Fellow  of  the  most 
exclusive  of  colleges,  nay,  a  married  Fellow — a  be- 
ing not  even  invented  then — and  a  professor  of  the 
University,  never  entered  into  my  wildest  dreams. 
I  could  only  admire,  and  admire  with  all  my  heart. 
Everything  seemed  perfect,  the  gardens,  the  walks 
in  the  neighbourhood,  the  colleges,  and  most  of  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  colleges,  both  Fellows  and 
undergraduates.      My   ideas   were  still   so   purely 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  223 

continental  that  I  could  not  understand  how  the 
University  could  do  such  a  thing  as  incorporate  a 
foreign  scholar — could,  in  fact,  govern  itself  with- 
out a  Minister  of  Education  to  appoint  professors, 
without  a  Royal  Commissioner  to  look  after  the 
undergraduates  and  their  moral  and  political  senti- 
ments. And  here  at  Oxford  I  was  told  that  the 
Government  did  not  know  Oxford,  nor  Oxford  the 
Government,  that  the  only  ruling  power  consisted 
in  the  Statutes  of  the  University,  that  professors  and 
tutors  were  perfectly  free  so  long  as  they  conformed 
to  these  statutes,  and  that  certainly  no  minister 
could  ever  appoint  or  dismiss  a  professor,  except  the 
Regius  professors.  "  If  we  want  a  thing  done,"  my 
friends  used  to  explain  to  me,  "  we  do  it  ourselves, 
as  long  as  it  does  not  run  counter  to  the  statutes." 

But  Oxford  changes  with  every  generation.  It  is 
always  growing  old,  but  it  is  always  growing  young 
again.  There  was  an  old  Oxford  four  hundred  years 
ago,  and  there  was  an  old  Oxford  fifty  years  ago. 
To  a  man  who  is  taking  his  M.A.  degree,  Oxford,  as 
it  was  when  he  was  a  freshman,  seems  quite  a  thing 
of  the  past.  By  the  public  at  large  no  place  is  sup- 
posed to  be  so  conservative,  so  unchanging,  nay,  so 
stubborn  in  resisting  new  ideas,  as  Oxford ;  and  yet 
people  who  knew  it  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  like 
myself,  find  it  now  so  changed  that,  when  they  look 
back  they  can  hardly  believe  it  is  the  same  place. 
Even  architecturally  the  streets  of  the  University 
have  changed,  and  here  not  always  for  the  better. 


224  -^y  Autobiography 

Architects  unfortunately  object  to  mere  imitation  of 
the  old  Oxford  style  of  building;  they  want  to  pro- 
duce something  entirely  their  own,  which  may  be 
very  good  by  itself,  but  is  not  always  in  harmony 
with  the  general  tone  of  the  college  buildings.  I 
still  remember  the  outcry  against  the  Taylor  Institu- 
tion, the  only  Palladian  building  at  Oxford,  and  yet 
everybody  has  now  grown  reconciled  to  it,  and  even 
Ruskin  lectured  in  it,  which  he  would  not  have  done, 
if  he  had  disapproved  of  its  architecture.  He  would 
never  lecture  in  the  Indian  Institute,  and  wrote  me  a 
letter  sadly  reproving  me  for  causing  Broad  Street  to 
be  defaced  by  such  a  building,  when  I  had  had  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  do  with  it.  He  was  very  loud  in  his 
condemnation  of  other  new  buildings.  He  abused 
even  the  New  Museum,  though  he  had  a  great  deal 
to  do  with  it  himself.  He  had  hoped  that  it  would 
be  the  architecture  of  the  future,  but  he  confessed 
after  a  time  that  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the 
result. 

In  his  days  we  still  had  the  old  Magdalen  Bridge, 
the  Bodleian  unrestored,  and  no  trams.  Ruskin  was 
so  offended  by  the  new  bridge,  by  the  restored 
Bodleian,  and  by  the  tram-cars,  that  he  would  go 
ever  so  far  round  to  avoid  these  eyesores,  when  he 
had  to  deliver  his  lectures;  and  that  was  by  no 
means  an  easy  pilgrimage.  There  was,  of  course, 
no  use  in  arguing  with  him.  Most  people  like  the 
new  Magdalen  Bridge  because  it  agrees  better  with 
the  width  of  High  Street;    they  consider  the  Bod- 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  225 

leian  well  restored,  particularly  now  that  tlie  new 
stone  is  gradually  toning  down  to  the  colour  of  the 
old  walls,  and  as  to  tram-cai-s,  objectionable  as  they 
are  in  many  respects,  they  certainly  offend  the  eye 
less  than  the  old  dirty  and  rickety  omnibuses.  The 
new  buildings  of  Merton,  in  the  style  of  a  London 
police-station,  offended  him  deeply,  and  with  more 
justice,  particularly  as  he  had  to  live  next  door  to 
them  when  he  had  rooms  at  Corpus. 

These  new  buildings  could  not  be  helped  at  Ox- 
ford. The  stone,  with  which  most  of  the  old  colleges 
were  built,  was  taken  from  a  quarry  close  to  Oxford, 
and  began  to  peel  off  and  to  crumble  in  a  very  curi- 
ous manner.  Artists  like  these  chequered  walls,  and 
by  moonlight  they  are  certainly  picturesque,  but 
the  colleges  had  to  think  of  what  was  safe.  My  own 
college.  All  Souls,  has  ever  so  many  pinnacles,  and 
we  kept  an  architect  on  purpose  to  watch  which  of 
them  were  unsafe  and  had  to  be  restored  or  replaced 
by  new  ones.  Every  one  of  these  pinnacles  cost  us 
about  fifty  pounds,  and  at  every  one  of  our  meetings 
we  were  told  that  so  many  pinnacles  had  been  tested, 
and  wanted  repairing  or  replacing.  Many  years 
ago,  when  I  was  spending  the  whole  Long  Vacation 
at  Oxford,  I  could  watch  from  my  windows  a  man 
who  was  supposed  to  be  testing  the  strength  of 
these  pinnacles.  He  was  armed  with  a  large  crow- 
bar, which  he  ran  with  all  his  might  against  the 
unfortunate  pinnacle.  I  doubt  whether  the  walls 
of  any  Roman  castellum  could  have  resisted  such 


226  My  Autobiography 

a  ram.  I  spoke  to  some  of  the  Fellows,  and  wheii 
the  builder  made  his  next  report  to  us,  we  rather 
objected  to  the  large  number  of  invalids.  He  was 
not  to  be  silenced,  however,  so  easily,  but  told  us 
with  a  very  grave  countenance  that  he  could  not 
take  the  responsibility,  as  a  pinnacle  might  fall  any 
day  on  our  Warden  when  he  went  to  chapel.  This, 
he  thought,  would  settle  the  matter.  But  no,  it 
made  no  impression  whatever  on  the  junior  Fellows, 
and  the  number  of  annual  cripples  was  certainly 
very  much  reduced  in  consequence. 

It  is  true  that  Oxford  has  always  loved  what  is 
old  better  than  what  is  new,  and  has  resisted  most 
innovations  to  the  very  last.  A  well-known  liberal 
statesman  used  to  say  that  when  any  measure  of 
reform  was  before  Parliament,  he  always  rejoiced  to 
see  an  Oxford  petition  against  it,  for  that  measure 
was  sure  to  be  carried  very  soon.  It  should  not 
be  forgotten,  however,  that  there  always  has  been 
a  liberal  minority  at  Oxford.  It  is  still  mentioned 
as  something  quite  antediluvian,  that  Oxford,  that 
is  the  Hebdomadal  Council,  petitioned  against  the 
Great  Western  Railway  invading  its  sacred  pre- 
cincts; but  it  is  equally  true  that  not  many  years 
later  it  petitioned  for  a  branch  line  to  keep  the  Uni- 
versity in  touch  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 

Many  things,  of  course,  have  been  changed,  and 
are  changing  every  year  before  our  very  eyes;  but 
what  can  never  be  changed,  in  spile  of  some  recent 
atrocities  in  brick  and  mortar,  is  the  natural  beautj^ 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  227 

of  its  gardens,  and  the  historical  character  of  its 
architecture.  Whether  Friar  Bacon,  as  far  back 
as  the  thirteenth  century,  admired  the  colleges, 
chapels,  and  gardens  of  Oxford,  we  do  not  know; 
and  even  if  we  did,  few  of  them  could  have  been 
the  same  as  those  which  we  admire  to-day.  We 
must  not  forget  that  Greene's  Honourable  History 
of  Friar  Bacon  does  not  give  us  a  picture  of  what 
Oxford  was  when  seen  by  that  famous  philosopher, 
who  is  sometimes  claimed  as  a  Fellow  of  Brasenose 
College,  probably  long  before  that  College  existed; 
but  what  is  said  in  that  play  in  praise  of  the  Univer- 
sity, may  at  least  be  taken  as  a  recollection  of  what 
Greene  saw  himself,  when  he  took  his  degree  as 
Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1578.  In  his  play  of  the  His- 
tory of  Friar  Bacon,  Greene  introduces  the  Em- 
peror of  Germany,  Henry  II,  1212-50,  as  paying 
a  visit  to  Henry  III  of  England,  1216-73,  and  he 
puts  into  his  mouth  the  following  lines,  which, 
though  they  cannot  compare  with  Shelley's  or  Mat 
Arnold's,  are  at  all  events  the  earliest  testimony  to 
the  natural  attractions  of  Oxford.  Anyhow,  Shel- 
ley's and  Mat  Arnold's  lines  are  well  known  and  are 
always  quoted,  so  that  I  venture  to  quote  Greene's 
lines,  not  for  the  sake  of  their  beauty,  but  simply 
because  they  are  probably  known  to  very  few  of  my 
readers : 

"  Trust  me,  Plantagenet,  these  Oxford  schools 
Are  richly  seated  near  the  river-side : 
The  mountains  full  of  fat  and  fallow  deer, 


228  My  Autobiography 

The  battling^  pastures  lade  with  kine  and  flocks, 
The  town  gorgeous  with  high  built  colleges, 
And  scholars  seemly  in  their  grave  attire. " 

The  mountains  round  Oxford  we  must  accept  as 
a  bold  poetical  licence,  whether  they  were  meant  for 
Headington  Hill  or  Wytham  Woods.  The  German 
traveller,  Hentzner,  who  described  Oxford  in  1598, 
is  more  true  to  nature  when  he  speaks  of  the  wooded 
hills  that  encompass  the  plain  in  which  Oxford  lies. 

But  while  the  natural  beauty  of  Oxford  has  al- 
ways been  admired  and  praised  by  strangers,  the 
doctors  and  professors  of  the  old  University  have 
not  always  fared  so  well  at  the  hands  of  English 
and  foreign  critics.  I  shall  not  quote  from  Giordano 
Bruno,  who  visited  England  in  1583-5,  and  calls  Ox- 
ford "the  widow  of  true  science^,"  but  Milton 
surely  cannot  be  suspected  of  any  prejudice  against 
Oxford.  Yet  he  writes  in  1656  in  a  letter  to  Rich- 
ard Jones:  "There  is  indeed  plenty  of  amenity 
and  salubrity  in  the  place  when  you  are  there. 
There  are  books  enough  for  the  needs  of  a  Univer- 
sity: if  only  the  amenity  of  the  spot  contributed  so 
much  to  the  genius  of  the  inhabitants  as  it  does  to 
pleasant  living,  nothing  would  seem  wanting  to  the 
happiness  of  the  place." 

These  ill-natured  remarks  about  the  Oxford  Dons 
seem  to  go  on  to  the  very  beginning  of  our  century. 

'  Will  it  be  believed  that  the  battels  (bills)  in  College  are  con- 
nected with  this  word  ? 

*  Opere^  ed.  Wagner,  i.  p.  179. 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  229 

The  buildings  and  gardens  are  praised,  but  by  way 
of  contrast,  it  would  seem,  or  from  some  kind  of 
jealousy,  their  inhabitants  are  always  treated  with 
ridicule.  Not  long  ago  a  book  was  published, 
Memoirs  of  a  Highland  Lady.  Though  published 
in  1898,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  memoirs 
go  back  as  far  as  1809.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten 
that  at  that  time  the  authoress  was  hardly  more 
than  thirteen  years  of  age,  and  certainly  of  a  very 
girlish,  not  to  say  frivolous,  disposition.  She  stayed 
some  time  with  the  then  Master  of  University, 
Dr.  Griffith,  and  for  him,  it  must  be  said,  she  always 
shows  a  certain  respect.  But  no  one  else  at  Oxford 
is  spared.  She  arrived  there  at  the  time  of  Lord 
Grenville's  installation  as  Chancellor  of  the  Univer- 
sity. Though  so  young,  she  was  taken  to  the  Thea- 
tre, and  this  is  her  description  of  what  she  saw  and 
heard: — "  It  was  a  shock  to  me;  I  had  expected  to 
be  charmed  with  a  play,  instead  of  being  nearly  set 
to  sleep  by  discourses  in  Latin  from  a  pulpit.  There 
were  some  purple,  and  some  gold,  some  robes  and 
some  wigs,  a  great  crowd,  and  some  stir  at  times, 
while  a  deal  of  humdrum  speaking  and  dumb  show 
was  followed  by  the  noisy  demonstrations  of  the  stu- 
dents, as  they  applauded  or  condemned  the  honours 
bestowed;  but  in  the  main  I  tired  of  the  heat  and 
the  mob,  and  the  worry  of  these  mornings,  and  so, 
depend  upon  it,  did  poor  Lord  Grenville,  who  sat 
up  in  the  chair  of  state  among  the  dignitaries,  like 
the  Grand  Lama  in  his  temple  guarded  by  his 


230  My  Autobiography 

priests."  One  thing  only  she  was  delighted  with, 
that  was  the  singing  of  Catalan!  at  one  of  the  con- 
certs. Yet  even  here  she  cannot  repress  her  remark 
that  she  sang  "  Gott  safe  the  King."  She  evidently 
was  a  flippant  young  lady  or  child,  and  with  her 
sister,  who  afterwards  joined  her  at  Oxford,  seems 
to  have  found  herself  quite  a  fish  out  of  water  in 
the  grave  society  of  the  University. 

The  room  in  the  Master's  Lodge  which  appalled 
her  most  and  seems  to  have  been  used  as  a  kind 
of  schoolroom,  was  the  Library,  full  of  Divinity 
books,  but  without  curtains,  carpet,  or  fireplace. 
Here  they  had  lessons  in  music,  drawing,  arithmetic, 
history,  geography,  and  French.  "  And  the  Mas- 
ter," she  adds,  "  opened  to  us  what  had  been  till 
then  a  sealed  book,  the  New  Testament,  so  that  this 
visit  to  Oxford  proved  really  one  of  the  fortunate 
chances  of  my  life." 

This  speaks  well  for  the  young  lady,  who  in  later 
life  seems  to  have  occupied  a  most  honoured  and 
influential  position  in  Scotch  society.  But  Oxford 
society  evidently  found  no  favour  in  her  eyes. 

Her  uncle  and  aunt,  as  she  tells  us,  were  fre- 
quently out  at  dinner  with  other  Heads  of  Houses, 
for  there  was,  of  course,  no  other  society.  These 
dinners  seem  to  have  been  very  sumptuous,  though 
their  own  domestic  life  was  certainly  very  simple. 
For  breakfast  they  had  tea,  and  butter  on  their 
bread,  and  at  dinner  a  small  glass  of  ale,  college 
home-brewed  ale.    "  How  fat  we  got !  "  she  exclaims. 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  231 

The  Master  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  refined 
taste,  fond  of  drawing,  and  what  was  called  poker- 
painting;  he  was  given  also  to  caricaturing,  and 
writing  of  sqnibs.  The  two  young  ladies  were  evi- 
dently fond  of  his  society,  but  of  the  other  Oxford 
society  she  only  mentions  the  ultra-Tory  politics, 
and  the  stupidity  and  frivolity  of  the  Heads  of 
Houses.  "  The  various  Heads,"  she  writes,  "  with 
their  respective  wives,  were  extremely  inferior  to 
my  uncle  and  aunt.  More  than  half  of  the  Doctors 
of  Divinity  were  of  humble  origin,  the  sons  of  small 
gentry  or  country  clergy,  or  even  of  a  lower  grade. 
Many  of  these,  constant  to  the  loves  of  their  youth, 
brought  ladies  of  inferior  manners  to  grace  what 
appeared  to  them  so  dignified  a  station.  It  was  not 
a  good  style ;  there  was  little  talent,  and  less  polish, 
and  no  sort  of  knowledge  of  the  w^orld.  And  yet 
the  ignorance  of  this  class  was  less  offensive  than 
the  assumption  of  another,  when  a  lady  of  high 
degree  had  fallen  in  love  with  her  brother's  tutor, 
and  got  him  handsomely  provided  for  in  the  Church, 
that  she  might  excuse  herself  for  marrying  him.  Of 
the  lesser  clergy,  there  were  young  witty  ones — 
odious;  young  learned  ones — bores;  and  elderly 
ones — pompous;  all,  however,  of  all  grades,  kind 
and  hospitable.  But  the  Christian  pastor,  humble, 
gentle,  considerate,  and  self-sacrificing,  had  no  rep- 
resentative, as  far  as  I  could  see,  among  these  deal- 
ers in  old  wines,  rich  dinners,  fine  china,  and  mas- 
sive plate." 


232  My  Autobiography 

"  The  religion  of  Oxford  appeared  in  those  days 
to  consist  in  honouring  the  King  and  his  Ministers, 
and  in  perpetually  popping  in  and  out  of  chapel. 
Chapel  was  announced  by  the  strokes  of  a  big  ham- 
mer, beaten  on  every  staircase  half  an  hour  before 
by  a  scout.  The  education  was  suited  to  Divinity. 
A  sort  of  supervision  was  said  to  be  kept  over  the 
young,  riotous  community,  and  to  a  certain  extent 
the  Proctors  of  the  University  and  the  Deans  of  the 
different  colleges  did  see  that  no  very  open  scandal 
was  committed.  There  were  rules  that  had  in  a 
general  way  to  be  obeyed,  and  lectures  that  had  to 
be  attended,  but  as  for  care  to  give  high  aims,  pro- 
vide refining  amusements,  give  a  worthy  tone  to 
the  character  of  responsible  beings,  there  was  none 
ever  even  thought  of.  The  very  meaning  of  the 
word  '  education  '  did  not  appear  to  be  understood. 
The  college  was  a  fit  sequel  to  the  school.  The 
young  men  herded  together;  they  lived  in  their 
rooms,  and  they  lived  out  of  them,  in  the  neighboiir- 
ing  villages,  where  many  had  comfortable  establish- 
ments. .  .  .  All  sorts  of  contrivances  were  re- 
sorted to  to  enable  the  dissipated  to  remain  out  all 
night,  to  shield  a  culprit,  to  deceive  the  dignitaries." 
This  was  in  1809,  and  even  later. 

And  yet  with  all  this,  and  while  we  are  told  that 
those  who  attended  lectures  were  laughed  at,  it 
seems  strange  that  the  best  divines,  and  lawyers, 
and  politicians  of  the  first  half  of  our  century,  some 
of  whom  we  may  have  known  ourselves,  must  have 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  233 

been  formed  under  that  system.  We  can  hardly 
believe  that  it  was  as  bad  as  here  described,  and  we 
must  remember  that  much  of  the  Memoirs  of  this 
Scotch  lady  can  have  been  written  from  memory 
only,  and  long  after  the  time  when  she  and  her 
sister  lived  at  University  College.  Life  there,  no 
doubt,  may  have  been  very  dull,  as  there  were  no 
other  young  ladies  at  Oxford,  and  it  cannot  have 
been  very  amusing  for  these  young  girls  to  dine 
with  sixteen  Heads  of  Houses,  all  in  wide  silk 
cassocks,  scarves  and  bands,  one  or  two  in  powdered 
wigs,  so  that,  as  we  are  told,  they  often  went  home 
crying.  All  intercourse  with  the  young  men  was 
strictly  forbidden,  though  it  seems  to  have  been 
not  altogether  impossible  to  communicate,  from  the 
garden  of  the  Master's  Lodge,  with  the  young  men 
bending  out  of  the  college  windows,  or  climbing 
down  to  the  gardens. 

One  of  these  young  men,  who  was  at  University 
College  at  the  same  time,  might  certainly  not  have 
been  considered  a  very  desirable  companion  for 
these  two  Scotch  girls.  It  was  no  other  than 
Shelley.  What  they  say  of  him  does  not  tell  us 
much  that  is  new,  yet  it  deserves  to  be  repeated. 
"  Mr.  Shelley,"  we  read,  "  afterwards  so  celebrated, 
was  half  crazy.  He  began  his  career  with  every 
kind  of  wild  prank  at  Eton.  At  University  he  was 
very  insubordinate,  always  infringing  some  rule,  the 
breaking  of  which  he  knew  could  not  be  overlooked. 
He  was  slovenly  in  his  dress,  and  when  spoken  to 


234  My  Autobiography 

about  these  and  other  irregularities,  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  making  such  extraordinary  gestures,  ex- 
pressive of  his  humility  under  reproof,  as  to  overset 
first  the  gravity  and  then  the  temper  of  the  leetm-ing 
tutor.  When  he  proceeded  so  far  as  to  paste  up 
atheistical  squibs  on  the  chapel  doors,  it  was  con- 
sidered necessary  to  expel  him  privately,  out  of 
regard  to  Sir  Timothy  Shelley,  the  father,  who 
came  up  at  once.  He  and  his  son  left  Oxford  to- 
gether." 

No  one  would  recognize  in  this  picture  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxford,  as  it  is  at  present.  Nous  avons 
change  tout  cela  might  be  said  with  great  truth  by 
the  Heads  of  Houses,  the  Professors,  and  Fellows 
of  the  present  day.  And  yet  what  the  Highland 
lady,  or  rather  the  Highland  girl,  describes,  refers 
to  times  not  so  long  ago  but  that  some  of  the  men 
we  have  known  might  have  lived  through  it.  How 
this  change  came  about  I  cannot  tell,  though  I  can 
bear  testimony  to  a  few  survivals  of  the  old  state  of 
things. 

The  Oxford  of  1848  was  still  the  Oxford  of  the 
Heads  of  Houses  and  of  the  Hebdomadal  Board. 
That  board  consisted  almost  entirely  of  Heads  of 
Houses,  and  a  most  important  board  it  was,  con- 
sidering that  the  whole  administration  of  the  Uni- 
versity was  really  in  its  hands.  The  colleges,  on 
the  other  hand,  were  very  jealous  of  their  inde- 
pendence; and  even  the  authority  of  the  Proctors, 
who  represented  the  University  as  such,  was  often 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  235 

contested  within  the  gates  of  a  college.  It  is 
wonderful  that  this  old  system  of  governing  the 
University  through  the  Heads  of  Houses  should 
have  gone  on  so  long  and  so  smoothly.  Having 
been  trusted  by  the  Fellows  of  his  own  society  with 
considerable  power  in  the  administration  of  his  own 
college,  it  was  supposed  that  the  Head  would  prove 
equally  useful  in  the  administration  of  the  Univer- 
sity. A  Head  of  a  House  became  at  once  a 
member  of  the  Council.  And,  on  the  whole,  they 
managed  to  drive  the  coach  and  horses  very  well. 
But  often  when  I  had  to  take  foreigners  to  hear 
the  University  Sermon,  and  they  saw  a  most  ex- 
traordinary set  of  old  gentlemen  walking  into  St. 
Mary's  in  procession,  with  a  most  startling  combina- 
tion of  colours,  black  and  red,  scarlet  and  pink,  on 
their  heavy  gowns  and  sleeves,  I  found  it  difficult 
to  explain  who  they  were.  "  Are  they  your  pro- 
fessors?" I  was  asked.  "Oh,  no,"  I  said,  "the 
professors  don't  wear  red  gowns,  only  Doctors  of 
Divinity  and  of  Civil  Law,  and  as  every  Head  of 
a  House  must  have  something  to  wear  in  public, 
he  is  invariably  made  a  Doctor."  I  remember  one 
exception  only,  and  at  a  much  later  time,  namely, 
the  Master  of  Balliol,  who,  like  Canning  at  the 
Congress  of  Vienna,  considered  it  among  his  most 
valued  distinctions  never  to  have  worn  the  gown 
of  a  D.C.L.  or  D.D.  It  is  well  known  that  when 
Marshal  Bliicher  was  made  a  Doctor  at  Oxford  he 
asked,  in  the  innocence  of  his  heart,  that  General 


236  My  Autobiography 

Gnelsenau,  his  right-hand  man,  might  at  least  be 
made  a  chemist.  He  certainly  had  mixed  a  most 
effective  powder  for  the  French  army  under  Napo- 
leon. 

"  But,"  my  friend  would  ask,  "  have  you  no 
Senatus  Academicus,  have  you  no  faculties  of  pro- 
fessors such  as  there  are  in  all  other  Christian  uni- 
versities? "  "  Yes  and  no,"  I  said.  "  We  have 
professors,  but  they  are  not  divided  into  faculties, 
and  they  certainly  do  not  form  the  Senatus  Aca- 
demicus,or  the  highest  authority  in  the  University." 

It  seems  very  strange,  but  it  is  nevertheless  a 
fact,  that  as  soon  as  a  good  tutor  is  made  a  professor, 
he  is  considered  of  no  good  for  the  real  teaching 
work  of  the  colleges.  His  lectures  are  generally  de- 
serted ;  and  I  could  quote  the  names  of  certain  pro- 
fessors who  afterwards  rose  to  great  eminence,  but 
who  at  Oxford  were  simply  ignored  and  their  lect- 
ure-rooms deserted.  The  real  teaching  or  coaching 
or  cramming  for  examination  is  left  to  the  tutors 
and  Fellows  of  each  college,  and  the  examinations 
also  are  chiefly  in  their  hands.  Many  undergrad- 
uates never  see  a  professor,  and,  as  far  as  the  teach- 
ing work  of  the  University  is  concerned,  the  pro- 
fessorships might  safely  be  abolished.  And  yet,  as 
I  could  honestly  assure  my  foreign  friends,  the  best 
men  who  take  honour  degrees  at  Oxford  are  quite 
the  equals  of  the  best  men  at  Paris  or  Berlin.  The 
professors  may  not  be  so  distinguished,  but  that  is 
due  to  a  certain  extent  to  the  small  salaries  attached 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  237 

to  some  of  the  chairs.  England  has  produced  great 
names  both  in  science  and  philosophy  and  scholar- 
ship, but  these  have  generally  drifted  to  some  more 
attractive  or  lucrative  centres.  When  I  first  came  to 
Oxford  one  professor  received  £40  a  year,  another 
£1,500,  and  no  one  complained  about  these  inequali- 
ties. A  certain  amount  of  land  had  been  left  by  a 
king  or  bishop  for  endowing  a  certain  chair,  and 
every  holder  of  the  chair  received  whatever  the  en- 
dowment yielded.  The  mode  of  appointing  profess- 
ors was  very  curious  at  that  time.  Often  the  elec- 
tions resembled  parliamentary  elections,  far  more 
regard  being  paid  to  political  or  theological  partisan- 
ship than  to  scientific  qualifications.  Every  M.A. 
had  a  vote,  and  these  voters  were  scattered  all  over 
the  country.  Canvassing  was  carried  on  quite 
openly.  Travelling  expenses  were  freely  paid,  and 
lists  were  kept  in  each  college  of  the  men  who  could 
be  depended  on  to  vote  for  the  liberal  or  the  con- 
servative candidate.  Imagine  a  professor  of  medi- 
cine or  of  Greek  being  elected  because  he  was  a  lib- 
eral! Some  appointments  rested  with  the  Prime 
Minister,  or,  as  it  was  called,  the  Crown ;  and  it  was 
quoted  to  the  honour  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
that  he,  when  Chancellor  of  the  University,  once 
insisted  that  the  electors  should  elect  the  best  man, 
and  they  had  to  yield,  though  there  were  electors 
who  would  declare  their  own  candidate  the  best 
man,  whatever  the  opinion  of  really  qualified  judges 
might  be.    All  this  election  machinery  is  much  im- 


238  My  Autobiography- 

proved  now,  tliougli  an  infallible  system  of  electing 
the  best  men  has  not  yet  been  discovered.  One  sin- 
gle elector,  who  is  not  troubled  by  too  tender  a  con- 
science, may  even  now  vitiate  a  whole  election;  to 
say  nothing  of  the  painful  position  in  which  an 
elector  is  placed,  if  he  has  to  vote  against  a  personal 
friend  or  a  member  of  his  own  college,  particularly 
when  the  feeling  that  it  is  dishonourable  to  disclose 
the  vote  of  each  elector  is  no  longer  strong  enough 
to  protect  the  best  interests  of  the  University. 

It  took  me  some  time  before  I  could  gain  an  in- 
sight into  all  this.  The  old  system  passed  away 
before  my  very  eyes,  not  without  evident  friction 
between  mv  different  friends,  and  then  came  the 
difficulty  of  learning  to  understand  the  working  of 
the  new  machinery  which  had  been  devised  and 
sanctioned  by  Parliament.  Reformers  arose  even 
among  the  Heads  of  Houses,  as,  for  instance.  Dr. 
Jeune,  the  Master  of  Pembroke  College,  who  was 
credited  with  having  rajeuni  Vancienne  universite. 
But  he  was  by  no  means  the  only,  or  even  the 
chief  actor  in  University  reform.  Many  of  my 
personal  friends,  such  as  Dr.  Tait,  afterwards  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  the  Rev.  H.  G.  Liddell,  after- 
wards Dean  of  Christ  Church,  Professor  Baden- 
Powell,  and  the  Rev.  G.  H.  S.  Johnson,  afterwards 
Dean  of  Wells,  with  Stanley  and  Goldwin  Smith 
as  Secretaries,  did  honest  service  in  the  various 
Royal  and  Parliamentary  Commissions,  and  spent 
much  of  their  valuable  time  in  serving  the  Univer- 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  239 

sity  and  the  country.  I  could  do  no  more  than  an- 
swer the  questions  addressed  to  me  by  the  Commis- 
sioners and  by  my  friends,  and  this  is  really  all  the 
share  I  had  at  that  time  in  the  reform  of  the  Uni- 
versity, or  what  was  called  Germanizing  the  English 
Universities.  At  one  time  such  w^as  the  unpopu- 
larity of  these  reformers  in  the  University  itself 
that  one  of  them  asked  one  of  the  junior  professors 
to  invite  him  to  dinner,  because  the  Heads  of  Houses 
would  no  longer  admit  him  to  their  hospitable 
boards. 

Certainlv  to  have  been  a  member  of  the  much 
abused  Hebdomadal  Board,  and  a  Head  of  a  College 
in  those  pre-reform  days  must  have  been  a  delightful 
life.  Before  the  days  of  agi-icultural  distress  the  in- 
come of  the  colleges  was  abundant ;  the  authority  of 
the  Heads  was  unquestioned  in  their  own  colleges; 
not  only  undergraduates,  but  Fellows  also  had  to 
be  submissive.  No  junior  Fellow  would  then  have 
dared  to  oppose  his  Head  at  college  meetings. 
If  there  was  by  chance  an  obstreperous  junior,  he 
was  easily  silenced  or  requested  to  retire.  The 
days  had  not  yet  come  when  a  Master  of  Trinity 
ventured  to  remark  that  even  a  junior  Fellow 
might  possibly  be  mistaken.  Colleges  seemed  to 
be  the  property  of  the  Heads,  and  in  some  of  them 
the  Fellows  were  really  chosen  by  them,  and  the 
rest  of  the  Fellow^s  after  some  kind  of  examination. 
The  management  of  University  affairs  was  likewise 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Heads  of  Colleges,  and 


240  My  Autobiography- 

it  was  on  rare  occasions  only  that  a  theological  ques- 
tion stirred  the  interest  of  non-resident  M.A.s,  and 
brought  them  to  Oxford  to  record  their  vote  for  or 
against  the  constituted  authorities.  Men  like  the 
Dean  of  Christ  Church,  Dr.  Gaisford,  the  Warden 
of  Wadham,  Dr.  Parsons,  and  the  Provost  of  Oriel, 
Dr.  Hawkins,  were  in  their  dominions  supreme,  till 
the  rebellious  spirit  began  to  show  itself  in  such  men 
as  Dr.  Jeune,  Professor  Baden-Powell,  A.  P.  Stan- 
ley, Gold  win  Smith  and  others. 

Nor  were  there  many  very  flagrant  abuses  under 
the  old  regime.  It  was  rather  the  want  of  life  that 
was  complained  of.  It  began  to  be  felt  that  Oxford 
should  take  its  place  as  an  equal  by  the  side  of 
foreign  Universities,  not  only  as  a  high  school,  but 
as  a  home  of  what  then  was  called  for  the  first 
time  "  original  research."  There  can  be  no  question 
that  as  a  teaching  body,  as  a  high  school  at  the 
head  of  all  the  public  schools  in  England,  Ox-ford 
did  its  duty  nobly.  A  man  who  at  that  time  could 
take  a  Double  First  was  indeed  a  strong  man,  well 
fitted  for  any  work  in  after  life.  He  would  not 
necessarily  turn  out  an  original  thinker,  a  scholar, 
or  a  discoverer  in  physical  science,  but  he  would 
know  what  it  was  to  know  anything  thoroughly. 
To  take  honours  at  the  same  time  in  classics  and 
mathematics  required  strength  and  grasp,  and  the 
effort  was  certainly  considerable,  as  I  found  out 
when  occasionally  I  read  a  Greek  or  Latin  author 
with  a  young  undergraduate  friend.     What  struck 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  241 

me  most  was  the  accurate  knowledge  a  candidate 
acquired  of  special  authors  and  special  books,  but 
also  the  want  of  that  familiarity  with  the  language, 
Greek  or  Latin,  which  would  enable  him  to  read 
any  new  author  with  comparative  ease.  The  young 
men  whom  I  knew  at  the  time  they  went  in  for 
their  final  examination,  were  certainly  well  ground- 
ed in  classics,  and  what  they  knew  they  knew  thor- 
oughly. 

The  personal  relations  existing  between  under- 
graduates and  their  tutors  were  very  intimate. 
A  tutor  took  a  pride  in  his  pupils,  and  often  became 
their  friend  for  life.  The  teaching  was  almost 
private  teaching,  and  the  idea  of  reading  a  written 
lecture  to  a  class  in  college  did  not  exist  as  yet. 
It  was  real  teaching  with  questions  and  answers; 
while  lectures,  written  and  read  out,  were  looked 
down  upon  as  good  enough  for  professors,  but  en- 
tirely useless  for  the  schools.  The  social  tone  of  the 
University  was  excellent.  Many  of  the  tutors  and 
of  the  undergraduates  came  of  good  families,  and 
the  struggle  for  life,  or  for  a  college  living,  or  col- 
lege office,  was  not,  as  yet,  so  fierce  as  it  became 
afterwards.  College  tutors  toiled  on  for  life,  and 
certainly  did  their  work  to  the  last  most  conscien- 
tiously. There  was  perhaps  little  ambition,  little 
scheming  or  pushing,  but  the  work  of  the  University, 
such  as  the  country  would  have  it,  was  well  done. 
If  the  Honour-Lists  were  small,  the  number  of  utter 
failures  also  was  not  very  large. 


242  My  Autobiography 

For  a  young  scholar,  hke  myself,  who  came  to 
live  at  Oxford  in  those  distant  days,  the  peace  and 
serenity  of  life  were  most  congenial,  though  several 
of  my  friends  were  among  the  first  who  began  to 
fret,  and  wished  for  more  work  to  be  done  and  for 
better  use  to  be  made  of  the  wealth  and  the  oppor- 
tunities of  the  University.  My  impression  at  that 
time  was  the  same  as  it  has  been  ever  since,  that 
a  reform  of  the  Universities  was  impossible  till  the 
public  schools  had  been  thoroughly  reformed.  The 
Universities  must  take  what  the  schools  send  them. 
There  is  every  year  a  limited  number  of  boys  from 
the  best  schools  who  would  do  credit  to  any  Uni- 
versity. But  a  large  number  of  the  young  men 
who  are  sent  up  to  matriculate  at  Oxford  are  not 
up  to  an  academic  standard.  Unless  the  colleges 
agree  to  stand  empty  for  a  year  or  two,  they  cannot 
help  themselves,  but  have  to  keep  the  standard  of 
the  matriculation  examination  low,  and  in  fact  do, 
to  a  great  extent,  the  work  that  ought  to  have  been 
done  at  school.  Think  of  boys  being  sent  up  to 
Oxford,  who,  after  having  spent  on  an  average  six 
years  at  a  public  school,  are  yet  unable  to  read  a  line 
of  Greek  or  Latin  which  they  have  not  seen  before. 
Yet  so  it  was,  and  so  it  is,  unless  I  am  very  much  mis- 
informed. It  is  easy  for  some  colleges  who  keep  up 
a  high  standard  of  matriculation  to  turn  out  first- 
class  men;  the  real  burden  falls  on  the  colleges  and 
tutors  who  have  to  work  hard  to  bring  their  pupils  up 
to  the  standard  of  a  pass  degree,  and  few  people  have 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  243 

any  idea  how  little  a  pass  degree  may  mean.  Those 
tutors  have  indeed  hard  work  to  do  and  get  little 
credit  for  it,  though  their  devotion  to  their  college 
and  their  pupils  is  highly  creditable.  Fifty  years 
ago  even  a  pass  degree  was  more  difficult  than  it  is 
now,  because  candidates  were  not  allowed  to  pass  in 
different  subjects  at  different  times,  but  the  whole 
examination  had  to  be  done  all  at  once,  or  not 
at  all. 

I  had  naturally  made  it  a  rule  at  Oxford  to  stand 
aloof  from  the  conflict  of  parties,  whether  academi- 
cal, theological,  or  political.  I  had  my  own  work  to 
do,  and  it  did  not  seem  to  me  good  taste  to  obtrude 
my  opinions,  which  naturall}'  were  different  from 
those  prevalent  at  Oxford.  Most  people  like  to  wash 
their  dirty  linen  among  themselves;  and  though  I 
gladly  talked  over  such  matters  with  my  friends  who 
often  consulted  me,  I  did  not  feel  called  upon  to  join 
in  the  fray.  I  lived  through  several  severe  crises  at 
Oxford,  and  though  I  had  some  intimate  friends  on 
either  side,  I  remained  throughout  a  looker  on. 

Seldom  has  a  University  passed  through  such  a 
complete  change  as  Oxford  has  since  the  year  1854. 
And  yet  the  change  was  never  violent,  and  the 
University  has  passed  through  its  ordeal  really  re- 
juvenated and  reinvigorated.  It  has  been  said  that 
our  constitution  has  now  become  too  democratic, 
and  that  a  University  should  be  ruled  by  a  Senatus 
rather  than  by  a  Juventus.  This  is  true  to  a  certain 
extent.     There  has  been  too  much  unrest,  too  con- 


244  ^y  Autobiography 

stant  changes,  and  a  lack  of  continuity  in  the  studies 
and  in  the  government  of  the  University.  Every 
three  years  a  new  wave  of  young  masters  came  in, 
carried  a  reform  in  the  system  of  teaching  and 
examining,  and  then  left  to  make  room  for  a  new 
wave  which  brought  new  ideas,  before  the  old  ones 
had  a  fair  trial.  Senior  members  of  the  University, 
heads  of  houses  and  professors,  have  no  more  voting 
power  than  the  young  men  who  have  just  taken 
their  degrees,  nay,  have  in  reality  less  influence  than 
these  young  Masters,  who  always  meet  together  and 
form  a  kind  of  compact  phalanx  when  votes  are  to 
be  taken.  There  was  even  a  Non-placet  club,  ready 
to  throw  out  any  measure  that  seemed  to  emanate 
from  the  reforming  party,  or  threatened  to  change 
any  established  customs,  whether  beneficial  or  other- 
wise to  the  University.  The  University,  as  such, 
was  far  less  considered  than  the  colleges,  and  money 
drawn  from  the  colleges  for  University  purposes 
was  looked  upon  as  robbery,  though  of  course  the 
colleges  profited  by  the  improvement  of  the  Uni- 
versity, and  the  interests  of  the  two  ought  never  to 
have  been  divided,  as  little  as  the  interests  of  an 
army  can  be  divided  from  the  interests  of  each 
regiment. 

When  I  came  to  Oxford  there  was  still  practically 
no  society  except  that  of  the  Heads  of  Houses,  and 
there  were  no  young  ladies  to  grace  their  dinners. 
Each  head  took  his  turn  in  succession,  and  had  twice 
or  three  times  during  term  to  feed  his  colleagues. 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  245 

These  dinners  were  sumptuous  repasts,  though  they 
often  took  place  as  early  as  five.  To  be  invited  to 
them  was  considered  a  ^reat  distinction,  and,  though 
a  very  young  man,  I  was  allowed  now  and  then  to 
be  present,  and  I  highly  appreciated  the  honour. 
The  company  consisted  almost  entirely  of  Heads  of 
Houses,  Canons,  and  Professors;  sometimes  there 
was  a  sprinkling  of  distinguished  persons  from  Lon- 
don, and  even  of  ladies  of  various  ages  and  degrees. 
I  confess  I  often  sat  among  them,  as  we  say  in  Ger- 
man, verrathen  und  verkauft.  After  dinner  I  saw 
a  number  of  young  men  streaming  in,  and  thought 
the  evening  would  now  become  more  lively.  But 
far  from  it.  These  yoi-ng  men  with  white  ties  and 
in  evening  dress  stood  in  their  scanty  gowns  hud- . 
died  together  on  one  'lide  of  the  room.  They  re- 
ceived a  cup  of  te?.  but  no  one  noticed  them  or 
spoke  to  them,  ami  they  hardly  dared  to  speak 
among  themselves.  This,  as  I  was  told,  was  called 
"  doing  the  peTi>endieular,"  and  they  must  have  felt 
much  relie^'ed  when  towards  ten  o'clock  they  were 
allowed  to  depart,  and  exchange  the  perpendicular 
for  a  more  comfortable  position,  indulging  in  songs 
and  pleasant  talk,  which  I  sometimes  was  invited  to 
join. 

At  that  time  I  remember  only  very  few  houses 
outside  the  circle  of  Heads  of  Houses,  where  there 
was  a  lady  and  a  certain  amount  of  social  life — the 
houses  of  Dr.  Acland,  Dr.  Greenhill,  Professor 
Baden-Powell,  Professor  Doukiu,  and  Mr.  Greswell. 


246  My  Autobiography 

In  their  houses  there  was  less  of  the  strict  academi- 
cal etiquette,  and  as  they  were  fond  of  music,  par- 
ticularly the  Donkins,  I  spent  some  really  delight- 
ful evenings  with  them.  Nay,  as  I  played  on  the 
pianoforte,  even  the  Heads  of  Houses  began  to 
patronize  music  at  their  evening  parties,  though  no 
gentleman  at  that  time  would  have  played  at  Ox- 
ford. I  being  a  German,  and  Professor  Donkin 
being  a  confirmed  invalid,  we  were  allowed  to  play, 
and  we  certainly  had  an  appreciative,  though  not 
always  a  silent,  audience. 

In  one  respect,  the  old  system  of  Oxford  Fellow- 
ships was  still  very  perceptible  in  the  society  of  the 
University.  No  Fellows  were  allowed  to  marry, 
and  the  natural  consequence  was  that  most  of  them 
waited  for  a  college  living,  a  professorship  or  libra- 
rianship,  which  generally  came  to  them  when  they 
were  no  longer  young  men.  Headships  of  colleges 
also  had  so  long  to  be  waited  for  that  most  of  them 
were  generally  filled  by  very  senior  and  mostly  un- 
married men.  Besides,  headships  were  but  seldom 
given  for  excellence  in  scholarship,  science,  or  even 
divinity,  but  for  the  sake  of  personal  popularity, 
and  for  business  habits.  Some  of  the  Fellows  gave 
pleasant  and,  as  I  thought,  very  Lucullic  dinners 
in  college;  and  I  still  remember  my  surprise  when 
I  was  asked  to  the  first  dinner  in  Common  Room  at 
Jesus  College.  My  host  was  Mr.  Ffoulkes,  who 
afterwards  became  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  then  an 
Anglican  clergyman  again.     The  carpets,  the  cur- 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  247 

tains,  the  whole  furniture  and  the  plate  quite  con- 
founded me,  and  I  became  still  more  confounded 
when  I  was  suddenly  called  upon  to  make  a  speech 
at  a  time  when  I  could  hardly  put  two  words  to- 
gether in  English. 

The  City  society  was  completely  separated  from 
the  University  society,  so  that  even  rich  bankers 
and  other  gentlemen  would  never  have  ventured  to 
ask  members  of  the  University  to  dine. 

Considering  the  position  then  held  by  the  Heads 
of  Houses,  I  feel  I  ought  to  devote  some  pages  to 
describing  some  of  the  most  prominent  of  them. 
At  my  age  I  may  well  hold  to  the  maxim  seniores 
priores,  and  will  therefore  begin  with  Dr.  Eouth, 
the  centenarian  President  of  Magdalen,  as,  though 
the  headship  of  a  house  seems  to  be  an  excellent  pre- 
scription for  longevity,  there  was  no  one  to  dispute 
the  venerable  doctor's  claim  to  precedence  in  this 
respect.  He  was  then  nearly  a  hundred  years  old, 
and  he  died  in  his  hundredth  year,  and  obtained  his 
wish  to  have  the  C,  anno  centesimo,  on  his  grave- 
stone, for,  though  tired  of  life,  he  often  declared,  so 
I  was  told,  that  he  would  not  be  outdone  in  this  re- 
spect by  another  very  old  man,  who  was  a  dissenter ; 
he  never  liked  to  see  the  Church  beaten.  I  might 
have  made  his  personal  acquaintance,  some  friends 
of  the  old  President  oflFering  to  present  me  to  him. 
But  I  did  not  avail  myself  of  their  offer,  because 
I  knew  the  old  man  did  not  like  to  be  shown  as 
a  curiosity.    When  I  saw  him  sitting  at  his  window 


248  My  Autobiography 

he  always  wore  a  wig,  and  few  had  seen  him  without 
his  wig  and  without  his  academic  gown.  He  was 
certainly  an  exceptional  man,  and  I  believe  he  stood 
alone  in  the  whole  history  of  literature,  as  having 
published  books  at  an  interval  of  seventy  years. 
His  edition  of  the  Enthymcmes  and  Gorgias  of 
Plato  was  published  in  178-i,  his  papers  on  the 
Ignatian  Epistles  in  1854.  His  Reliquia  Sacra 
first  appeared  in  1814,  and  they  are  a  work  which 
at  that  time  would  have  made  the  reputation  of  any 
scholar  and  divine.  His  editions  of  historical  works, 
such  as  Burnet's  History  of  his  own  Time  and  the 
History  of  the  reign  of  King  James,  show  his  con- 
siderable acquaintance  with  English  history.  I  have 
already  mentioned  how  he  used  to  speak  of  events 
long  before  his  time,  such  as  the  execution  of 
Charles  I,  as  if  he  had  been  present;  nor  did  he 
hesitate  to  declare  that  even  Bishop  Burnet  was  a 
great  liar.  He  certainly  had  seen  many  things 
which  connected  him  with  the  past.  He  had  seen 
Samuel  Johnson  mounting  the  steps  of  the  Claren- 
don building  in  Broad  Street,  and  though  he  had 
not  himself  seen  Charles  I  when  he  held  his  Parlia- 
ment at  Oxford,  he  had  known  a  lady  whose  mother 
had  seen  the  king  walking  round  the  Parks  at  Ox- 
ford. 

However,  we  must  not  forget  that  many  stories 
about  the  old  President  were  more  or  less  mythical, 
as  indeed  many  Oxford  stories  are.  I  was  told 
that  he  actually  slept  in  wig,  cap  and  gown,  so  that 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  249 

once  when  an  alarm  of  fire  was  raised  in  the  quad- 
rangle of  his  College,  he  put  his  head  out  of  window 
in  an  incredibly  short  time,  fully  equipped  as  above. 
Many  of  these  stories  or  "  Common-Roomers  "  as 
thej  were  called,  still  lived  in  the  Common  Rooms 
in  my  time,  when  the  Fellows  of  each  College  as- 
sembled regularly  after  dinner,  to  take  wine  and 
dessert,  and  to  talk  on  anything  but  what  was  called 
Shop,  i.e.  Greek  and  Latin.  No  one  inquired  about 
the  truth  of  these  stories,  as  long  as  they  were  well 
told.  In  a  place  like  Oxford  there  exists  a  regular 
descent,  by  inheritance,  of  good  stories.  I  remem- 
ber stories  told  of  Dr.  Jenkins,  as  Master  of  Balliol, 
and  afterwards  transferred  to  his  successor,  Mr. 
Jowett.  Bodleian  stories  descended  in  like  manner 
from  Dr.  Bandinell  to  Mr,  Coxe,  and  will  probably 
be  told  of  successive  librarians  till  they  become 
quite  incongruous.  I  am  old  enough  to  have 
watched  the  descent  of  stories  at  Oxford,  just  as 
one  recognizes  the  same  furniture  in  college  rooms 
occupied  by  successive  generations  of  undergradu- 
ates. To  me  they  sometimes  seem  threadbare  like 
the  old  Turkish  carpets  in  the  college  rooms,  but  I 
never  spoil  them  by  betraying  their  age,  and,  if 
well  told,  I  can  enjoy  them  as  much  as  if  I  had 
never  heard  them  before. 

Dr.  Hawkins,  Provost  of  Oriel,  was  quite  a  rep- 
resentative of  Old  Oxford,  and  a  well-known  char- 
acter in  the  University.  I  had  been  introduced  to 
him  by  Baron  Bunsen,  and  he  showed  me  much 


250  My  Autobiography 

hospitality.  I  was  warned  that  I  should  find  him 
very  stiff  and  forhidding.  His  own  Fellows  called 
him  the  East-wind.  But  though  he  certainly  was 
condescending,  he  treated  me  with  great  urbanity. 
He  had  a  very  peculiar  habit;  when  he  had  to 
shake  hands  with  people  whom  he  considered  his 
inferiors,  he  stretched  out  two  fingers,  and  if  some 
of  them  who  knew  this  peculiarity  of  his,  tendered 
him  two  fingers  in  return,  the  shaking  of  hands 
became  rather  awkward.  One  of  the  Fellows  of  his 
college  told  me  that,  as  long  as  he  was  only  a  Fel- 
low, he  never  received  more  than  two  fingers;  when, 
however,  he  became  Head  Master  of  a  school,  he 
was  rewarded  with  three  fingers,  or  even  with  the 
whole  hand,  but,  as  soon  as  he  gave  up  this  place, 
and  returned  to  live  in  college,  he  was  at  once  re- 
duced to  the  statutable  two  fingers.  I  don't  recol- 
lect exactly  how  many  fingers  I  was  treated  to,  and 
I  may  have  shaken  them  with  my  whole  hand. 
Anyhow,  I  am  quite  conscious  now  of  how  many 
times  I  must  have  offended  against  academic  eti- 
quette. How,  for  instance,  is  a  man  to  know  that 
people  who  live  at  Oxford  during  term-time  never 
shake  hands  except  once  during  term?  I  doubt,  in 
fact,  whether  that  etiquette  existed  when  I  first 
came  to  Oxford,  but  it  certainly  had  existed  for 
some  time  before  I  discovered  it. 

Dr.  Jenkins,  Master  of  Balliol,  was  also  the  hero 
of  many  anecdotes.  It  was  of  him  that  it  was  first 
told  how  he  once  found  fault  with  an  undergraduate 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  251 

because,  whenever  he  looked  out  of  window,  he 
invariably  saw  the  young  man  loitering  about  in 
the  quad;  to  which  the  undergraduate  replied: 
"  How  very  curious,  for  whenever  I  cross  the  quad, 
I  always  see  you,  Sir,  looking  out  of  window."  He 
had  a  quiet  humour  of  his  own,  and  delighted  in 
saying  things  which  made  others  laugh,  but  never 
disturbed  a  muscle  of  his  own  face.  One  of  his 
undergraduates  was  called  "\Yyndham,  and  he  had 
to  say  a  few  sharp  words  to  him  at  "  handshaking," 
that  is,  at  the  end  of  term.  After  saying  all  he 
wanted,  he  finished  in  Latin:  "  Et  nunc  valeas 
AVyndhamme," — the  last  two  s\'llables  being  pro- 
nounced with  great  emphasis.  The  Master's  regard 
for  his  owTi  dignity  was  very  great.  Once,  when 
returning  from  a  solitary  walk,  he  slipped  and  fell. 
Two  undergraduates  seeing  the  accident  ran  to  as- 
sist him,  and  were  just  laying  hands  on  him  to  lift 
him  up,  when  he  descried  a  Master  of  Arts  coming. 
"  Stop,"  he  cried,  "  stop,  I  see  a  Master  of  Arts 
coming  down  the  street."  And  he  dismissed  the 
undergraduates  with  many  thanks,  and  was  helped 
on  to  his  legs  by  the  M.  A. 

Accidents,  or  slips  of  the  tongue,  will  happen  to 
everybody,  even  to  a  Head  of  a  House.  One  of 
these  old  gentlemen,  Dr.  Symons,  of  Wadham, 
when  presiding  at  a  missionary  meeting,  had  to 
introduce  Sir  Peregrine  Maitland,  a  most  distin- 
guished officer,  and  a  thoroughly  good  man.  When 
dilating  on  the  Christian  work  which  Sir  Peregrine 


252  My  Autobiography 

had  done  in  India,  he  called  him  again  and  again 
Sir  Peregrine  Pickle.  The  effect  was  most  ludi- 
crous, for  everybody  was  evidently  well  acquainted 
with  Eoderich  Eandom,  and  Sir  Peregrine  had  great 
difficulty  in  remaining  serious  when  the  Chairman 
called  on  Sir  Peregrine  Pickle  once  more  to  address 
his  somewhat  perplexed  audience. 

But  whatever  may  be  said  about  the  old  Heads 
of  Houses,  most  of  them  were  certainly  gentlemen 
both  by  birth  and  by  nature.  They  are  forgotten 
now,  but  they  did  good  in  their  time,  and  much  of 
their  good  work  remains.  If  I  consider  who  were 
the  Dean  and  Canons  and  Students  I  met  at  Christ 
Church  when  I  first  became  a  member  of  the  House, 
I  should  have  to  give  a  very  different  account  from 
that  given  by  the  Highland  lady  in  her  Memoirs. 
The  Dean  of  Christ  Church,  who  received  me,  who 
proposed  me  for  the  degree  of  M.A.,  and  afterwards 
allowed  me  to  become  a  member  of  the  House,  was 
Dr.  Gaisford,  a  real  scholar,  though  it  may  be  of 
the  old  school.  He  was  considered  very  rough  and 
rude,  but  I  can  only  say  he  showed  me  more  of  real 
courtesy  in  those  days  than  anybody  else  at  Oxford. 
He  was,  I  believe,  a  little  shy,  and  easily  put  out 
when  he  suspected  anybody,  particularly  the  young 
men,  of  want  of  consideration.  I  can  quite  believe 
that  when  an  undergraduate,  in  addressing  him, 
stepped  on  the  hearthrug  on  which  he  was  standing, 
he  may  have  said:  "Get  down  from  my  hearth- 
rug," meaning,  "  keep  at  your  proper  distance." 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  253 

I  can  only  say  that  I  never  found  him  anything  but 
kind  and  courteous.  It  so  happened  that  he  had 
been  made  a  Member  of  the  Bavarian  Academy, 
and  I,  though  very  young,  had  received  the  same 
distinction  as  a  reward  for  my  Sanskrit  work,  and 
the  Dean  was  rather  pleased  when  he  heard  it. 
When  I  asked  him  whether  he  would  put  my  name 
on  the  books  of  the  House,  he  certainly  hesitated 
a  little,  and  asked  me  at  last  to  come  again  next 
day  and  dine  with  him.  I  went,  but  I  confess 
I  was  rather  afraid  that  the  Dean  would  raise  dif- 
ficulties. However,  he  spoke  to  me  very  nicely, 
"  I  have  looked  through  the  books,"  he  said,  "  and 
I  find  two  precedents  of  Germans  being  members 
of  the  House,  one  of  the  name  of  Wemerus,  and 
another  of  the  name  of  Kitzschius,"  or  some  such 
name.  "  But,"  he  continued,  smiling,  "  even  if 
I  had  not  found  these  names,  I  should  not  have 
minded  making  a  precedent  of  your  case."  People 
were  amazed  at  Oxford  wdien  thev  heard  of  the 
Dean's  courtesy,  but  I  can  only  repeat  that  I  never 
found  him  anything  but  courteous. 

Most  of  the  Heads  of  Houses  asked  me  to  dine 
with  them  by  sending  me  an  in\4tation.  The  Dean 
alone  first  came  and  called  on  me.  I  was  then 
living  in  a  small  room  in  AValton  Street  in  which 
I  worked,  and  dined,  and  smoked.  My  bedroom 
was  close  by,  and  I  generally  got  up  early,  and 
shaved  and  finished  my  toilet  at  about  11  o'clock. 
I  had  just  gone  into  my  bedroom  to  shave,  my  face 


254  ^'-^y  Autobiography 

was  half  covered  with  lather,  when  my  landlady 
rushed  in  and  told  me  the  Dean  had  called,  and 
my  dogs  were  pulling  him  about.  The  fact  was 
I  had  a  Scotch  terrier  with  a  litter  of  puppies  in 
a  basket,  and  when  the  Dean  entered  in  full  aca- 
demical dress,  the  dogs  flew  at  him,  pulling  the 
sleeves  of  his  gown  and  barking  furiously.  Covered 
with  lather  as  I  was,  I  had  to  rush  in  to  quiet  the 
dogs,  and  in  this  state  I  had  to  receive  the  Very  Rev. 
the  Dean,  and  explain  to  him  the  nature  of  the  work 
that  brought  me  to  Oxford.  It  was  certainly  awk- 
ward, but  in  spite  of  the  disorder  of  my  room,  in 
spite  also  of  the  tobacco  smoke  of  which  the  Dean 
did  not  approve,  all  went  off  well,  though,  I  confess, 
I  felt  somewhat  ashamed.  In  the  same  interview 
the  Dean  asked  me  about  an  Icelandic  Dictionary 
which  had  been  offered  to  the  press  by  Cleasby  and 
Dasent.  "  Surely  it  is  a  small  barbarous  island," 
he  said,  "  and  how  can  they  have  any  literature?  " 
I  tried,  as  well  as  I  could,  to  explain  to  the  Dean  the 
extent  and  the  value  of  Icelandic  literature,  and 
soon  after  the  press,  which  was  then  the  Dean,  ac- 
cepted the  Dictionary  which  was  brought  out  later 
by  Dr.  Vigfusson,  in  a  most  careful  and  scholarlike 
manner.  It  might  indeed  safely  be  called  his  Dic- 
tionary, considering  how  many  dictionaries  are 
called,  not  after  the  name  of  the  compiler  or  com- 
pilers, but  after  that  of  their  editor. 

This  Dr.  Vigfusson  was  quite  a  character.     He 
was  perfectly  pale  and  bloodless,  and  had  but  one 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  255 

wish,  that  of  being  left  alone.  He  came  to  Oxford 
first  to  assist  Dr.  Dasent,  to  whom  Cleasby,  when 
he  died,  had  handed  over  his  collections;  but  after- 
wards he  stayed,  taking  it  for  granted  that  the 
University  would  give  him  the  little  he  wanted. 
But  even  that  little  was  difficult  to  provide,  as  there 
were  no  funds  that  could  be  used  for  that  purpose, 
however  uselessly  other  funds  might  seem  to  be 
squandered.  That  led  to  constant  grumbling  on 
his  part.  Ever  so  many  expedients  were  tried  to 
satisfy  him,  but  none  quite  succeeded.  At  last 
he  fell  ill  and  died,  and  when  he  was  a  patient  at 
the  Acland  Home,  where  the  nurses  did  all  they 
could  for  him,  he  several  times  said  to  me  when 
I  sat  with  him,  that  he  had  never  been  so  happy  in 
his  life  as  in  that  Home.  I  sometimes  blame  myself 
for  not  having  seen  more  of  him  at  Oxford.  But 
he  always  seemed  to  me  full  of  suspicions  and  very 
easily  offended,  and  that  made  any  free  intercourse 
with  him  difficult  and  far  from  pleasant.  Perhaps 
it  was  my  fault  also.  He  may  have  felt  that  he 
might  have  claimed  a  professorship  of  Icelandic 
quite  as  well  as  I,  and  he  may  have  grudged  my 
settled  position  in  Oxford,  my  independence  and  my 
freedom.  Whenever  we  did  work  together,  I  al- 
ways found  him  pleasant  at  first,  but  very  soon 
he  would  become  wayward  and  sensitive,  do  what 
I  would,  and  I  had  to  let  him  go  his  own  way,  as 
I  went  mine. 

I  remember  dining  with  the  famous  Dr.  Bull, 


256  My  Autobiography- 

Canon  of  Christ  Church,  who  certainly  managed  to 
produce  a  dinner  that  would  have  done  credit  to 
any  French  chef.  He  was  one  of  the  last  pluralists, 
and  many  stories  w^ere  told  about  him.  One  story, 
which  however  was  perfectly  true,  showed  at  all 
events  his  great  sagacity.  A  well-known  banker 
had  been  for  years  the  banker  of  Christ  Church. 
Dr.  Bull  who  was  the  College  Bursar  had  to  trans- 
act all  the  financial  business  with  him.  No  one 
suspected  the  banking  house  which  he  represented. 
Dr.  Bull,  however,  the  last  time  he  invited  him  to 
dinner,  was  struck  by  his  very  pious  and  orthodox 
remarks,  and  by  the  change  of  tone  in  his  conversa- 
tion, such  as  might  suit  a  Canon  of  Christ  Church, 
but  not  a  luxurious  banker  from  London.  Without 
saying  a  word.  Dr.  Bull  went  to  London  next  day, 
drew  out  all  the  money  of  the  college,  took  all  his 
papers  from  the  bank,  and  the  day  after,  to  the  dis- 
may of  London,  the  bank  failed,  the  depositors  lost 
their  money,  but  Christ  Church  was  unhurt. 

Another  of  the  Canons  of  Christ  Church  at  that 
time  had  spent  half  a  century  in  the  place,  and  read 
the  lessons  there  t\\^ce  every  day.  Of  course  he 
knew  the  prayer-book  by  heart,  and  as  long  as  he 
could  see  to  read  there  was  no  harm  in  his  reading. 
But  when  his  eyesight  failed  him  and  he  had  to 
trust  entirely  to  his  memory,  he  would  often  go 
from  some  word  in  the  evening  prayer  to  the  same 
word  in  the  marriage  service,  and  from  there  to 
the   burial   service,   with   an  occasional   slip   into 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  257 

baptism.  The  result  of  it  was  that  he  was  no 
longer  allowed  to  read  the  service  in  Chapel  except 
during  Long  Vacation  when  the  young  men  were 
away.  I  frequently  stayed  at  Oxford  during  vaca- 
tion, and  thought  of  course  that  the  evening  service 
would  never  end,  till  at  last  I  was  asked  to  name 
the  child,  and  then  I  went  home. 

One  Sunday  I  remember  going  to  chapel,  and 
after  prayers  had  begun  the  following  conversation 
took  place,  loud  enough  to  be  heard  all  through 
the  chapel.  Enter  old  Canon  preceded  by  a  beadle. 
He  goes  straight  to  his  stall,  and  finding  it  occupied 
by  a  well-known  D.D.  from  London,  who  is  deeply 
engaged  in  prayer,  he  stands  and  looks  at  the  inter- 
loper, and  when  that  produces  no  effect,  he  says 
to  the  beadle:  "  Tell  that  man  this  is  my  stall;  tell 
him  to  get  out." 

Beadle:  "  Dr.  A.'s  compliments,  and  whether  you 
would  kindly  occupy  another  stall." 

D.D. :  "  Very  sorry;  I  shall  change  immediately." 
Old  Canon  settles  in  his  stall,  prayers  continue, 
and  after  about  ten  minutes  the  Canon  shouts: 
"  Beadle,  tell  that  man  to  dine  with  me  at  five." 

Beadle :  "  Dr.  A.'s  compliments,  and  whether  you 
would  give  him  the  pleasure  of  your  company  at 
dinner  at  five." 

D.D.:  "  Very  sorry,  I  am  engaged." 

Beadle:  "  D.D.  regrets  he  is  engaged." 

Old  Canon:   "  Oh,  he  won't  dine!  " 

The  cathedral  was  very  empty,  and  fortunately 


258  My  Autobiography 

this  conversation  was  listened  to  by  a  small  con- 
gregation only.  I  can,  however,  vouch  for  it,  as 
I  was  sitting  close  by  and  heard  it  myself. 

Bodley's  Library,  too,  was  full  of  good  stories, 
though  many  of  them  do  not  bear  repeating.  When 
I  first  began  to  work  there,  Dr.  Bandinell  was 
Bodleian  Librarian.  Working  in  the  Bodleian  was 
then  like  working  in  one's  private  library.  One 
could  have  as  many  books  and  MSS.  as  one  desired, 
and  the  six  hours  during  which  the  Library  was 
open  were  a  very  fair  allowance  for  such  tiring 
work  as  copying  and  collating  Sanskrit  MSS.  I 
well  remember  my  delight  when  I  first  sat  down 
at  my  table  near  one  of  the  windows  looking  into 
the  garden  of  Exeter.  It  seemed  a  perfect  paradise 
for  a  student.  I  must  confess  that  I  slightly  altered 
my  opinion  when  I  had  to  sit  there  every  day 
during  a  severe  winter  without  anj'  fire,  shivering 
and  shaking,  and  almost  unable  to  hold  my  pen,  till 
kind  Mr.  Coxe,  the  sub-librarian,  took  compassion 
on  me  and  brought  me  a  splendid  fur  that  had  been 
sent  him  as  a  present  by  a  Russian  scholar,  who  had 
witnessed  the  misery  of  the  Librarian  in  this  Sibe- 
rian Library.  Now  all  this  is  changed.  The  Library 
is  so  full  of  students,  both  male  and  female,  that 
one  has  difficulty  in  finding  a  place,  certainly  in 
finding  a  quiet  place;  and  all  sorts  of  regulations 
have  been  introduced  which  have  no  doubt  become 
necessary  on  account  of  the  large  number  of  read- 
ers, but  which  have  completely  changed,  or  as  some 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  259 

would  say,  improved  the  character  of  the  place.  As 
to  one  improvement,  however,  there  can  be  no  two 
opinions.  The  Library  and  the  reading-room,  the 
so-called  Camera,  are  now  comfortably  warmed, 
and  students  may  in  the  latter  place  read  for  twelve 
hours  uninterruptedly,  and  not  be  turned  out  as 
we  were  by  a  warning  bell  at  four  o'clock.  And 
woe  to  you  if  you  failed  to  obey  the  warning.  One 
day  an  unfortunate  reader  was  so  absorbed  in  his 
book  that  he  did  not  hear  the  bell,  and  was  locked 
in.  He  tried  in  vain  to  attract  attention  from  the 
windows,  for  it  was  no  pleasant  prospect  to  pass 
a  night  among  so  many  ghosts.  At  last  he  saw 
a  solitary  woman,  and  shouted  to  her  that  he  was 
locked  in.  "  No,"  she  said,  "  you  are  not.  The 
Library  is  closed  at  four."  Whether  he  spent  the 
night  among  the  books  is  not  known.  Let  us  hope 
that  he  met  with  a  less  logical  person  to  release  him 
from  his  cold  prison. 

Dr.  Bandinell  ruled  supreme  in  his  library,  and 
even  the  Curators  trembled  before  him  when  he  told 
them  what  had  been  the  invariable  custom  of  the 
Library  for  years,  and  could  not  be  altered.  And, 
curiously  enough,  he  had  always  funds  at  his  dis- 
posal, which  is  not  the  case  now,  and  whenever 
there  was  a  collection  of  valuable  MSS.  in  the 
market  he  often  prided  himself  on  having  secured 
it  long  before  any  other  library  had  the  money 
ready.  Now  and  then,  it  is  true,  he  allowed  himself 
to  be  persuaded  by  a  plausible  seller  of  rare  books 


26o  My  Autobiography 

or  MSS,,  but  generally  be  was  very  wary.  He  was 
not  always  very  courteous  to  visitors,  and  still  less  so 
to  bis  under-librarians.  Tbe  Oriental  under-libra- 
rian  Professor  Eeay,  in  particular,  wbo  was  old  and 
soraewbat  infirm,  bad  mucb  to  suffer  from  bim,  and 
tbe  language  in  wbicb  be  was  ordered  about  was 
sucb  as  would  not  now  be  addressed  to  any  menial. 
And  yet  Professor  Reay  belonged  to  a  very  good 
familv,  tbougb  Dr.  Bandinell  would  insist  on  call- 
ing  bim  Ray,  and  declared  tbat  be  bad  no  rigbt  to 
tbe  e  in  bis  name.  In  revenge  some  people  would 
give  bim  an  additional  i  and  call  bim  Dr.  Bandinelli, 
wbicb  made  bim  very  angiy,  because,  as  be  would 
say  to  me,  "  be  bad  never  been  one  of  tbose  dirty 
foreigners."  Silence  was  enjoined  in  tbe  library, 
but  tbe  librarian's  voice  broke  tbrougb  all  rules  of 
silence.  I  remember  once,  wben  Professor  Reay 
bad  been  looking  for  ever  so  long  to  find  bis  spec- 
tacles witbout  wbicb  be  could  not  read  tbe  Arabic 
MSS.,  and  bad  asked  everybody  wbetber  tbey  bad 
seen  tbem,  a  voice  came  at  last  tbundering  tbrougb 
tbe  library :  "  You  left  your  spectacles  on  my  cbair, 

you  old  ,  and  I  sat  on  tbem!  "     Tbere  was 

an  end  of  spectacles  and  Arabic  MSS.  after  tbat. 
Tbere  were  two  men  only  of  whom  Dr.  Bandinell 
and  H.  O.  Coxe  also  were  afraid,  Dr.  Pusey,  wbo 
was  one  of  tbe  Curators,  and  later  on,  Jowett,  tbe 
Master  of  Balliol. 

Tbere  was  a  vacancy  in  the  Oriental  sub-libra- 
riansbip,  and  a  very  distinguished  young  Hebrew 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  261 

scholar,  AVilliam  Wriglit,  afterwards  Professor  at 
Cambridge,  was  certainly  by  far  the  best  candidate. 
But  as  ill-luck — I  mean  ill-luck  for  the  Library' — 
would  have  it,  he  had  given  offence  by  a  lecture  at 
Dublin,  in  which  he  declared  that  the  people  of 
Canaan  were  Semitic,  and  not,  as  stated  in  Genesis, 
the  children  of  Ham.  Xo  one  doubts  this  now,  and 
every  new  inscription  has  confirmed  it.  Still  a 
strong  effort  was  made  to  represent  Dr.  "Wright  as 
a  most  dangerous  young  man,  and  thus  to  prevent 
his  appointment  at  Oxford.  The  appointment  was 
really  in  the  hands  of  Dr.  Bandinell;  and  after  I 
had  frankly  explained  to  him  the  motives  of  this 
mischievous  agitation  against  Dr.  Wright,  and  as- 
sured him  that  he  was  a  scholar  and  by  no  means 
given  to  what  was  then  called  "  free-handling  of  the 
Old  Testament,"  he  promised  me  that  he  would 
appoint  him  and  no  one  else.  However,  poor  man, 
he  was  urged  and  threatened  and  frightened,  and 
to  my  great  surprise  the  appointment  was  given  to 
some  one  else,  who  at  that  time  had  given  hardly 
an}-  proofs  of  independent  work  as  a  Semitic  scholar, 
though  he  afterwards  rendered  very  good  and  hon- 
est service.  I  did  not  disguise  my  opinion  of  what 
had  happened;  and  for  more  than  a  year  Dr.  Ban- 
dinell  never  spoke  to  me  nor  I  to  him,  though  we 
met  almost  daily  at  the  library.  At  last  the  old 
man,  evidently  feeling  that  he  had  been  wrong, 
came  to  tell  me  that  he  was  sorry  for  what  had  hap- 
pened, but  that  it  was  not  his  fault:    after  this,  of 


262  My  Autobiography 

course,  all  was  forgotten.  Dr.  "Wright  had  a  much 
more  brilliant  career  opened  to  him,  first  at  the 
British  Museum,  and  then  as  professor  at  Cam- 
bridge, than  he  could  possibly  have  had  as  sub-libra- 
rian at  Oxford.  lie  always  remained  a  scholar,  and 
never  dabbled  in  theology. 

Some  very  heated  correspondence  passed  at  the 
time,  and  I  remember  keeping  the  letters  for  a  long 
while.  They  were  curious  as  showing  the  then  state 
of  theological  opinion  at  Oxford;  but  I  have  evi- 
dently put  the  correspondence  away  so  carefully 
that  nowhere  can  I  find  it  now.  Let  it  be  forgotten 
and  forgiven. 

Many,  if  not  all,  of  the  stories  that  I  have  writ- 
ten down  in  this  chapter  may  be  legendary,  and 
they  naturally  lose  or  gain  as  told  by  different  peo- 
ple. Who  has  not  heard  different  versions  of  the 
story  of  a  well-known  Canon  of  Christ  Church  in 
my  early  days,  who,  when  rowing  on  the  river,  saw 
a  drowning  man  laying  hold  of  his  boat  and  nearly 
upsetting  it.  "  Providentially,"  he  explained,  "  I 
had  brought  my  umbrella,  and  I  had  presence  of 
mind  enough  to  hit  him  over  the  knuckles.  He  let 
go,  sank,  and  never  rose  again."  Nobody,  I  im- 
agine, would  have  vouched  for  the  truth  of  this 
story,  but  it  was  so  often  repeated  that  it  provided 
the  old  gentleman  with  a  nickname,  that  stuck  to 
him  alwavs. 

I  could  add  more  Oxford  stories,  but  it  seems  al- 
most ill-natured  to  do  so,  and  I  could  only  say  in 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  263 

most  cases  relata  refero.     When  I  first  came  here 
Oxford  and  Oxford  society  were  to  me  so  strange 
that  I  probably  accepted  many  similar  stories  as 
gospel  truth.    My  young  friends  hardly  treated  me 
quite  fairly  in  this  respect.     I  had  many  questions 
to  ask,  and  my  friends  evidently  thought  it  great 
fun  to  chaff  me  and  to  tell  me  stories  which  I  natu- 
rally believed,  for  there  were  many  things  which 
seemed  to  mc  very  strange,  and  yet  they  were  true 
and  I  had  to  believe  them.     The  existence  of  Fel- 
lows who  received  from  £300  to  £800  a  year,  as  a 
mere  sinecure  for  life,  provided  they  did  not  marry, 
seemed  to  me  at  first  perfectly  incredible.    In  Ger- 
many education  at  Public  Schools  and  Universities 
was  so  cheap  that  even  the  poorest  could  manage 
to  get  what  was  wanted  for  the  highest  employ- 
ments, particularly  if  they  could  gain  an  exhibition 
or  scholarship.    But  after  a  man  had  passed  his  ex- 
aminations,  the  country   or  the   government  had 
nothing  more  to  do  with  him.     "  Swim  or  drown  " 
was  the  maxim  followed  everywhere;    and  it  was 
but  natural  that  the  first  years  of  professional  life, 
whether  as  lawyers,  medical  men,  or  clergymen, 
were  years  of  great  self-denial.    But  they  were  also 
years  of  intense  struggle,  and  the  years  of  hunger 
are  said  to  have  accounted  for  a  great  deal  of  excel- 
lent work  in  order  to  force  the  doors  to  better  em- 
ployment.    To  imagine  that  after  the  country  had 
done  its  duty  by  providing  schools  and  universities, 
it  would  provide  crutches  for  men  who  ought  to 


264  My  Autobiography- 

learn  to  walk  by  themselves,  was  beyond  my  com- 
prehension, particularly  when  I  was  told  how  large 
a  sum  was  yearly  spent  by  the  colleges  in  paying 
these  fellowships  without  requiring  any  quid  pro 
quo. 

Having  once  come  to  believe  that,  and  several 
ether  to  me  unintelligible  things  at  Oxford,  I  was 
ready  to  believe  almost  anything  my  friends  told 
me.  There  are  some  famous  stone  images,  for  in- 
stance, round  the  Theatre  and  the  Ashmolcan  Mu- 
seum. They  are  hideous,  for  the  sandstone  of  which 
they  are  made  has  crumbled  away  again  and  again, 
but  even  when  they  were  restored,  the  same  brittle 
stone  was  used.  They  are  in  the  form  of  Hermae, 
and  were  planned  by  no  less  an  architect  than  Sir 
Christopher  Wren.  When  I  asked  what  they  were 
meant  for,  I  was  assured  quite  seriously  that  they 
were  images  of  former  Heads  of  Houses.  I  believed 
it,  though  I  expressed  my  surprise  that  the  stone- 
mason who  made  new  heads,  when  the  old  showed 
hardly  more  than  two  eyes  and  a  nose,  and  a  very 
wide  mouth,  should  carefully  copy  the  crumbling 
faces,  because,  as  I  was  informed,  he  had  been  told 
to  copy  the  former  gentlemen. 

It  was  certainly  a  very  common  amusement  of 
my  young  undergraduate  friends  to  make  fun  of 
the  Heads  of  Houses.  They  did  not  seem  to  feel 
that  shiver  of  unspeakable  awe  for  them  of  which 
Bishop  Thorold  speaks;  nay,  they  were  anything 
but  respectful  in  speaking  of  the  Doctors  of  Divin- 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  265 

ity  in  their  red  gowns  with  black  velvet  sleeves.  If 
it  is  difficult  for  old  men  always  to  understand 
young  men,  it  is  certainly  even  more  difficult  for 
}  oung  men  to  understand  old  men.  There  is  a  very 
old  saying,  "  Young  men  think  that  old  men  are 
fools,  but  old  men  know  that  young  men  are." 
Though  very  young  myself,  I  came  to  know  several 
of  the  old  Heads  of  Houses,  and  though  they  cer- 
tainly had  their  peculiarities,  they  did  by  no  means 
all  belong  to  the  age  of  the  Dodo.  They  were  en- 
joying their  otium  cum  dignitate,  as  befits  gentle- 
men, scholars,  and  divines,  and  they  certainly  de- 
served greater  respect  from  the  undergraduates  than 
they  received. 

At  the  annual  Encaenia,  a  great  deal  of  licence 
was  allowed  to  the  young  men ;  and  I  know  of  sev- 
eral strangers,  especially  foreigners,  who  have  been 
scandalized  at  the  riotous  behaviour  of  the  under- 
graduates in  the  Theatre,  the  Oxford  Aula,  when 
the  Vice-Chancellor  stood  up  to  address  the  assem- 
bled audience.  My  first  experience  of  this  was  with 
Dr.  Plumptre,  who,  as  I  have  said,  was  very  tall 
and  stately;  when  his  first  words  were  not  quite  dis- 
tinct, the  undergraduates  shouted,  "  Speak  up,  old 
stick."  When  the  Warden  of  Wadham,  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Symons,  was  shomng  some  pretty  young  ladies 
to  their  seats  in  the  Theatre,  he  was  threatened  by 
the  young  men,  who  yelled  at  the  top  of  their  voices, 
**  I'll  tell  Lydia,  you  wicked  old  man."  Now  Lydia 
was  his  most  excellent  spouse.    At  first  the  remarks 


266  My  Autobiography 

of  the  undergraduates  at  the  Encaenia,  or  rather 
Saturnalia,  were  mostly  good-natured  and  at  least 
witty;    but  they  at  last  became  so  rude  that  dis- 
tinguished men,  w'hom  the  University  wished  to 
honour  by  conferring  on  them  honorary  degrees, 
felt  deeply  offended.     Sir  Arthur  Helps  declared 
that  he  came  to  receive  an  honour,  and  received  an 
insult.    Well  do  I  remember  the  Rev.  Dr.  Salmon, 
who  was  asked  where  he  had  left  his  lobster  sauce; 
Dr.  Wendell  Holmes  was  shouted  at,  whether  he 
had  come  across  the  Atlantic  in  his  "  One  Hoss 
Shay  ";   the  Right  Hon.  W.  H.  Smith,  First  Lord 
of  the  Admiralty,  was  presented  with  a  Pinafore, 
and  Lord  Wolseley  with  a  Black  Watch.     There 
was  a  certain  amount  of  wit  in  these  allusions,  and 
the  best  way  to  take  the  academic  row  and  riot  waa 
Tennyson's,  who  told  me  on  coming  out  that  "  he 
felt  all  the  time  as  if  standing  on  the  shingle  of  the 
sea  shore,  the  storm  howling,  and  the  spray  covering 
him  right  and  left."    After  a  time,  however,  these 
Saturnalia  had  to  be  stopped,  and  they  were  stopped 
in  a  curious  way,  by  giving  ladies  seats  among  the 
undergraduates.    It  speaks  well  for  them  that  their 
regard  for  the  ladies  restrained  them,  and  made 
them  behave  like  gentlemen. 

The  reign  of  the  Heads  of  Houses,  which  was  in 
full  force  when  I  first  settled  in  Oxford,  began  to 
wane  when  it  was  least  expected.  There  had,  how- 
ever, been  grumblings  among  the  Fellows  and  Tu- 
tors at  Oxford,  who  felt  themselves  aggrieved  by 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  267 

the  self-willed  interference  of  the  Heads  of  Colleges 
in  their  tutorial  work,  and,  it  may  be,  resented  the 
airs  assumed  by  men  who,  after  all,  were  their 
equals,  and  in  no  sense  their  betters,  in  the  Uni- 
versity. 

Society  distinctly  profited  when  Fellows  and  Tu- 
tors were  allowed  to  marry,  and  when  several  of 
the  newly-elected  of  the  Heads  of  Houses,  having 
wives  and  daughters,  opened  their  houses,  and  had 
interesting  people  to  dine  with  them  from  the 
neighbourhood  and  from  London. 

The  Deanerv  of  Christ  Church  was  not  only 
made  architecturally  into  a  new  house,  but  under 
Dr.  Liddell,  with  his  charming  wife  and  daughters, 
became  a  social  centre  not  easily  rivalled  anywhere 
else.  There  one  met  not  only  royalty,  the  young 
Prince  of  Wales,  but  many  eminent  writers,  artists, 
and  political  men  from  London,  Gladstone,  Disraeli, 
Richmond,  Ruskin,  and  many  others.  Another 
bright  house  of  the  new  era  was  that  of  the  Prin- 
cipal of  Brasenose,  Dr.  Cradock,  and  his  cheerful 
and  most  amusing  wife.  There  one  often  met  such 
men  as  Lord  Russell,  Sir  George  C.  Lewis,  young 
Harcourt,  and  many  more.  She  was  the  true  Dres- 
den china  marquise,  with  her  amusing  sallies,  which 
no  doubt  often  gave  offence  to  grave  Heads  of 
Houses  and  sedate  Professors.  No  one  knew  her 
age,  she  was  so  young;  and  yet  she  had  been  maid 
of  honour  to  some  Queen,  as  I  told  her  once,  to 
Queen  Anne.     Having  been  maid  of  honour,  she 


268  My  Autobiography 

never  concealed  her  own  peculiar  feelings  about 
people  who  had  not  been  presented.  When  she 
wanted  to  be  left  alone,  she  would  look  out  of  win- 
dow, and  tell  visitors  who  came  to  call,  "  Very  sorry, 
but  I  am  not  at  home  to-day."  Queen's  College 
also,  under  Dr.  Thomson,  the  future  Archbishop 
of  York,  was  a  most  hospitable  house.  Mrs.  Thom- 
son presided  over  it  with  her  peculiar  grace  and  gen- 
uine kindness,  and  many  a  pleasant  evening  I  spent 
there  with  musical  performances.  But  here,  too, 
the  old  leaven  of  Oxford  burst  forth  sometimes.  Of 
course,  we  generally  performed  the  music  of  Handel 
and  other  classical  authors;  Mendelssohn's  com- 
positions w^ere  still  considered  as  mere  twaddle  by 
some  of  the  old  school.  At  one  of  these  evenings, 
the  old  organist  of  New  College,  wntli  his  wooden 
leg,  after  sitting  through  a  rehearsal  of  Mendels- 
sohn's Hymn  of  Praise,  which  I  was  conducting  at 
the  pianoforte^  walked  up  to  me,  as  I  thought,  to 
thank  me;  but  no,  he  burst  out  in  a  torrent  of  real 
and  somewhat  coarse  abuse  of  me,  for  venturing  to 
introduce  such  flimsy  music  at  Oxford.  I  did  not 
feel  very  guilty,  and  fortunately  I  remained  silent, 
whether  from  actual  bewilderment  or  from  a  better 
cause,  I  can  hardly  tell. 

Long  before  Commissions  came  down  on  Oxford 
a  new  life  seemed  to  be  springing  up  there,  and 
what  was  formerly  the  exception  became  more  and 
more  the  rule  among  the  young  Fellows  and  Tutors. 
They  saw  what  a  splendid  opportunity  was  theirs. 


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Early  Days  at  Oxford  269 

having  the  very  flower  of  England  to  educate,  hav- 
ing the  future  of  English  society  to  form.  They 
certainly  made  the  best  of  it,  helped,  I  believe,  by 
the  so-called  Oxford  Movement,  M^hich,  whatever 
came  of  it  afterwards,  was  certainly  in  the  begin- 
ning thoroughly  genuine  and  conscientious.  The 
Tutors  saw  a  good  deal  of  the  young  men  confided 
to  their  care,  and  the  result  was  that  even  what  was 
called  the  "  fast  set  "  thought  it  a  fine  thing  to 
take  a  good  class.  I  could  mention  a  number  of 
young  noblemen  and  wealthy  undergraduates  who, 
in  my  early  years,  read  for  a  first  class  and  took  it; 
and  my  experience  has  certainly  been  that  those  who 
took  a  first  class  came  out  in  later  life  as  eminent 
and  useful  members  of  society.  ISTot  that  eminence 
in  political,  clerical,  literary,  and  scientific  life  was 
restricted  to  first  classes,  far  from  it.  But  first-class 
men  rarely  failed  to  appear  again  on  the  surface  in 
later  life.  It  may  be  true  that  a  first  class  did  not 
always  mean  a  first-class  man,  but  it  always  seemed 
to  mean  a  man  who  had  learned  how  to  work 
honestly,  whether  he  became  Prime  Minister  or 
Archbishop,  or  spent  his  days  in  one  of  the  public 
offices,  or  even  in  a  counting-house  or  newspaper 
office. 

I  felt  it  was  an  excellent  mixture  if  a  young  man, 
after  taking  a  good  degree  at  Oxford,  spent  a  year 
or  two  at  a  German  University.  He  generally  came 
back  with  fresh  ideas,  knew  what  kind  of  work  still 
had  to  be  done  in  the  different  branches  of  study, 


270  My  Autobiography 

and  did  it  with  a  perseverance  that  soon  produced 
most  excellent  results.  Of  course  there  was  always 
tlie  difficulty  that  young  men  wished  to  make  their 
way  in  life,  that  is  to  make  a  living.  The  Church, 
the  bar,  and  the  hospital,  absorbed  many  of  those 
who  in  Germany  would  have  looked  forward  to  a 
University  career.  In  my  own  subject  more  par- 
ticularly, my  very  best  pupils  did  not  see  their  way 
to  gaining  even  an  independence,  unless  they  gave 
their  time  to  first  securing  a  curacy,  or  a  mastership 
at  school;  and  they  usually  found  that,  in  order  to 
do  their  work  conscientiously,  they  had  to  give  up 
their  favourite  studies  in  which  they  would  cer- 
tainly have  done  excellent  work,  if  there  had  been 
no  dira  necessitas.  I  often  tried  to  persuade  my 
friends  at  Oxford  to  make  the  fellowships  really  use- 
ful by  concentrating  them  and  giving  studious  men 
a  chance  of  devoting  themselves  at  the  University 
to  non-lucrative  studies.  But  the  feeling  of  the 
majority  was  always  against  what  was  called  deri- 
sively Original  Research,  and  the  fellowship-funds 
continued  to  be  frittered  away,  payment  by  results 
being  considered  a  totally  mistaken  principle,  so 
that  often,  as  in  the  case  of  the  new  septennial  fel- 
lowships, there  remained  the  payment  only,  but  no 
results. 

Still  all  this  became  clear  to  me  at  a  much  later 
time  only.  My  first  years  at  Oxford  were  spent 
in  a  perfect  bewilderment  of  joy  and  admiration. 
No  one  can  see  that  University  for  the  first  time, 


Early  Days  at  Oxford  271 

particularly  in  spring  or  autumn,  without  being 
enchanted  with  it.  To  me  it  seemed  a  perfect  para- 
dise, and  I  could  have  wished  for  myself  no  better 
lot  than  that  which  the  kindness  of  my  friends  later 
secured  for  me  there. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

EARLY  FRIENDS  AT  OXFORD 

I  WAS  still  very  young  wlien  I  came  to  settle  at 
Oxford,  only  twenty-four  in  fact;  and,  though  oc- 
casionally honoured  by  invitations  from  Heads  of 
Houses  and  Professors,  I  naturally  lived  chiefly 
with  undergraduates  and  junior  Fellows,  such  as 
Grant,  Sellar,  Palgrave,  Morier,  and  others.  Grant, 
afterwards  Sir  Alexander  Grant  and  Principal  of 
the  University  of  Edinburgh,  was  a  delightful  com- 
panion. He  had  always  something  new  in  his  mind, 
and  discussed  with  many  flashes  of  wit  and  satire. 
He  possessed  an  aristocratic  contempt  for  anything 
commonplace,  or  self-evident,  so  that  one  had  to  be 
careful  in  conversing  with  him.  But  he  was  gen- 
erous, and  his  laugh  reconciled  one  to  some  of  his 
sharp  sallies.  How  little  one  anticipates  the  future 
greatness  of  one's  friends.  They  all  seem  to  us  no 
better  than  ourselves,  when  suddenly  they  emerge. 
Grant  had  shown  what  he  could  do  by  his  edition 
of  Aristotle's  Ethics.  He  became  one  of  the  Pro- 
fessors at  the  new  University  at  Bombay  and  con- 
tributed much  to  the  first  starting  of  that  Uni- 
versity, so  warmly  patronized  by  Sir  Charles  Tre- 

273 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  273 

velyan.  On  returning  to  this  country  he  was  chosen 
to  fill  the  distinguished  place  of  Principal  of  the 
Edinburgh  University.  More  was  expected  of  him 
when  he  enjoyed  this  otium  cum  dignitate,  but  his 
health  seemed  to  have  suffered  in  the  enervating  cli- 
mate of  India,  and,  though  he  enjoyed  his  return 
to  his  friends  most  fully  and  spending  his  life  as  a 
friend  among  friends,  he  died  comparatively  young, 
and  perhaps  without  fulfilling  all  the  hopes  that 
were  entertained  of  him.  But  he  was  a  thoroughly 
genial  man,  and  his  handshake  and  the  twinkle  of 
his  eye  when  meeting  an  old  friend  will  not  easily  be 
forgotten. 

Sellar  was  another  Scotchman  whom  I  knew  as 
an  undergraduate  at  Balliol.  When  I  first  came 
to  know  him  he  was  full  of  anxieties  about  his 
health,  and  greatly  occupied  with  the  usual  doubts 
about  religion,  particularly  the  presence  of  evil  or 
of  anything  imperfect  in  this  world.  He  was  an 
honest  fellow,  warmly  attached  to  his  friends;  and 
no  one  could  wish  to  have  a  better  friend  to  stand 
up  for  him  on  all  occasions  and  against  all  odds. 
He  afterwards  became  happily  married  and  a  use- 
ful Professor  of  Latin  at  Edinburgh.  I  stayed  with 
him  later  in  life  in  Scotland  and  found  him  always 
the  same,  really  enjoying  his  friends'  society  and 
a  talk  over  old  days.  He  had  begun  to  ail  when 
I  saw  him  last,  but  the  old  boy  was  always  there, 
even  when  he  was  miserable  about  his  chiefly  im- 
aginary miseries.     Soon  after  I  had  left  him  I  re- 


274  My  Autobiography 

ceived  his  last  message  and  farewell  from  his  death- 
bed. We  are  told  that  all  this  is  very  natural  and 
what  we  must  be  prepared  for — but  what  cold  gaps 
it  leaves.  My  thoughts  often  return  to  him,  as  if 
he  were  still  among  the  living,  and  then  one  feels 
one's  own  loneliness  and  friendlessness  again  and 
again. 

Palgrave  roused  great  expectations  among  un- 
dergraduates at  Oxford,  but  he  kept  us  waiting  for 
some  time.  He  took  early  to  office  life  in  the  Edu- 
cational Department,  and  this  seems  to  have  ground 
him  down  and  unfitted  him  for  other  work.  He  had 
a  wonderful  gift  of  admiring,  his  great  hero  being 
Tennyson,  and  he  was  more  than  disappointed  if 
others  did  not  join  in  his  unqualified  panegyrics  of 
the  great  poet.  At  last,  somewhat  late  in  life,  he 
was  elected  Professor  of  Poetry  at  Oxford,  and  gave 
some  most  learned  and  instructive  lectures.  His 
knowledge  of  English  Literature,  particularly  po- 
etry, was  quite  astounding.  I  certainly  never  went 
to  him  to  ask  him  a  question  that  he  did  not  answer 
at  once  and  with  exhaustive  fullness.  Some  of  his 
friends  complained  of  his  great  command  of  lan- 
guage, and  even  Tennyson,  I  am  told,  found  it 
sometimes  too  much.  All  I  can  say  is  that  to  me 
it  was  a  pleasure  to  listen  to  him.  I  owe  him  par- 
ticular thanks  for  having,  in  the  kindest  manner, 
revised  my  first  English  compositions.  He  was  al- 
ways ready  and  indefatigable,  and  I  certainly  owed 
a  good  deal  to  his  corrections  and  his  unstinted  ad- 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  275 

vice.  His  Golden  Treasury  has  become  a  national 
possession,  and  certainly  speaks  well  both  for  his 
extensive  knowledge  and  for  his  good  taste. 

Lastly  there  was  Morier,  of  whom  certainly  no 
one  expected  when  he  was  at  Balliol  that  he  would 
rise  to  be  British  Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg. 
His  early  education  had  been  somewhat  neglected, 
but  when  he  came  to  Balliol  he  worked  hard  to 
pass  a  creditable  examination.  He  was  a  giant  in 
size,  very  good-looking,  and  his  manners,  when  he 
liked,  most  charming  and  attractive.  Being  the 
son  of  a  diplomatist  there  was  something  both  Eng- 
lish and  foreign  in  his  manner,  and  he  certainly  was 
a  general  favourite  at  Oxford.  His  great  desire 
was  to  enter  the  diplomatic  service,  but  when  that 
was  impossible,  he  found  employment  for  a  time 
in  the  Education  Office.  But  society  in  London 
was  too  much  for  him,  he  was  made  for  society, 
and  society  was  delighted  to  receive  him.  But  it 
was  difficult  for  him  at  the  same  time  to  fulfil  his 
duties  at  the  Education  Office,  and  the  result  was 
that  he  had  to  give  up  his  place.  Things  began 
to  look  serious,  when  fortunately  Lord  Aberdeen, 
a  great  friend  of  his  father,  found  him  some  diplo- 
matic employment;  and  that  once  found,  Morier 
was  in  his  element.  He  was  often  almost  reckless; 
but  while  several  of  his  friends  came  altogether  to 
grief,  he  managed  always  to  fall  on  his  feet  and 
keep  afloat  while  others  went  down.  As  an  under- 
graduate he  came  to  me  to  read  Greek  with  me, 


2/6  My  Autobiography 

and  I  confess  that  with  such  mistakes  in  his  Greek 
papers  as  oi  irddoi,  instead  of  ra  irddr),  I  trembled 
for  his  examinations.  However,  he  did  well  in  the 
schools,  knowing  how  to  hide  his  weak  points  and 
how  to  make  the  best  of  his  strong  ones.  I  travelled 
with  him  in  Germany,  and  when  the  Schleswig- 
Holstein  question  arose,  he  wrote  a  pamphlet  which 
certainly  might  have  cost  him  his  diplomatic  career. 
He  asked  me  to  allow  it  to  be  understood  that  the 
pamphlet,  which  did  full  justice  to  the  claims  of 
Holstein  and  of  Germany,  had  been  written  by  me. 
I  received  many  compliments,  which  I  tried  to  parry 
as  well  as  I  could.  Fortunately  Lord  John  Russell 
stood  by  Morier,  and  his  prophecies  did  certainly 
turn  out  true.  "  Don't  let  the  Germans  awake  from 
their  slumbers  and  find  a  work  ready  made  for  them 
on  which  they  all  agree."  But  the  signatories  of 
the  treaty  of  London  did  the  very  thing  against 
which  Morier  had  raised  his  warning  voice,  as  the 
friend  of  Germany  as  it  was,  thougli  perhaps  not 
of  the  Germany  that  was  to  be.  Schleswig-Holstein 
rneer-umsclilungen  became  the  match,  (the  Schwe- 
fel-holzchen),  that  was  to  light  the  fire  of  German 
unity,  a  unity  which  for  a  time  may  not  have  been 
exactly  what  England  could  have  wished  for,  but 
which  in  the  future  will  become,  we  hope,  the  safety 
of  Europe  and  the  support  of  England. 

Morier's  later  advance  in  his  diplomatic  career 
was  certainly  most  successful.  He  possessed  the 
very  important  art  of  gaining  the  confidence  of  the 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  277 

crowned  heads  and  ministers  he  had  to  deal  with. 
Bismarck,  it  is  true,  could  not  bear  him,  and  tried 
several  times  to  trip  him  up.  Even  while  Morier 
was  at  Berlin,  as  a  Secretary  of  Legation,  Bismarck 
asked  for  his  removal,  but  Lord  Granville  simply 
declined  to  remove  a  young  diplomatist  who  gave 
him  information  on  all  parties  in  Germany,  and  to 
do  so  had  to  mix  with  people  whom  Bismarck  did 
not  approve  of.  Besides,  Morier  was  always  a 
persona  grata  with  the  Crov^m  Prince  and  the 
Crown  Princess,  and  that  was  enough  to  make  Bis- 
marck dislike  him.  Later  in  life  Bismarck  accused 
him  of  having  conveyed  private  information  of  the 
military  position  of  the  Germans  to  the  French 
Guards,  such  information  being  derived  from  the 
English  Court.  The  charge  was  ridiculous.  Morier 
was  throughout  the  war  a  sympathizer  with  Ger- 
many as  against  France.  The  English  Court  had 
no  military  information  to  convey  or  to  communi- 
cate to  Morier,  and  Morier  was  too  much  of  a  dip- 
lomatist and  a  gentleman,  if  by  accident  he  had 
possessed  any  such  information,  to  betray  such  a 
secret  to  an  enemy  in  the  field.  Bismarck  was  com- 
pletely routed,  though  his  son  seemed  inclined  to 
fasten  a  duel  on  the  English  diplomatist.  Morier 
rose  higher  and  higher,  and  at  last  became  Ambassa- 
dor at  St.  Petersburg.  When  I  laughed  and  con- 
gratulated him  he  said,  "  He  must  be  a  great  fool 
who  does  not  reach  the  top  of  the  diplomatic  tree." 
That  was  too  much  modesty,  and  yet  modesty  was 


278  My  Autobiography 

not  exactly  his  fault;  but  he  agreed  with  me  as  to 
quam  parva  sapientia  regitur  niundus. 

Nothing  could  seem  more  prosperous  than  my 
friend  Morier's  career;  but  few  people  knew  how 
utterly  miserable  he  really  was.  He  had  one  son, 
in  many  respects  the  very  image  of  his  father,  a 
giant  in  stature,  very  handsome,  and  most  attrac- 
tive. In  spite  of  all  we  said  to  him  he  would  not 
send  his  son  to  a  public  school  in  England,  but  kept 
him  with  him  at  the  different  embassies,  where  his 
only  companions  were  the  young  attaches  and  sec- 
retaries. He  had  a  private  tutor,  and  when  that 
tutor  declared  that  young  Morier  was  fit  for  the 
University,  his  father  managed  to  get  him  into  Bal- 
liol,  recommending  him  to  the  special  care  of  the 
Master.  He  actually  lived  in  the  Master's  house  for 
a  time,  but  enjoyed  the  greatest  liberty  that  an 
undergraduate  at  Oxford  may  enjoy.  His  father 
was  wrapped  up  in  his  boy,  but  at  the  same  time 
tried  to  frighten  him  into  hard  work,  or  at  least 
into  getting  through  the  examinations.  All  was  in 
vain;  young  Morier  was  so  nervous  that  he  could 
never  pass  an  examination.  What  might  be  ex- 
pected followed,  and  the  father  had  at  last  to  remove 
him  to  begin  work  as  an  honorary  attache  at  his  own 
embassy.  I  liked  the  young  man  very  much,  but 
my  own  impression  is  that  his  nervousness  quite  un- 
fitted him  for  serious  work.  The  end  was  beyond 
description  sad.  He  went  to  South  Africa  in  the 
police  force,  distinguished  himself  very  much,  came 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  279 

back  to  England,  and  then  on  his  second  voyage 
to  the  Cape  died  suddenly  on  board  the  steamer.  I 
have  seldom  seen  such  utter  misery  as  his  father's. 
He  loved  his  son  and  the  son  loved  his  father  pas- 
sionately, but  the  father  expected  more  than  it 
was  physically  and  mentally  possible  for  the  son  to 
do.  Hence  arose  misunderstandings,  and  yet  be- 
neath the  surface  there  was  this  passionate  love,  like 
the  love  of  lovers.  When  I  saw  my  old  friend  last, 
he  cried  and  sobbed  like  a  child :  his  heart  was  really 
broken.  He  went  on  for  a  few  years  more,  suffer- 
ing much  from  ill  health,  but  really  killed  at  last 
by  his  utter  misery.  I  knew  him  in  the  bright 
morning  of  his  life,  at  the  meridian  of  his  great  suc- 
cess, and  last  in  the  dark  night  when  light  and  life 
seems  gone,  when  the  moon  and  all  the  stars  are 
extinguished,  and  nothing  remains  but  patient  suf- 
fering and  the  hope  of  a  brighter  morn  to  come. 

How  little  one  dreamt  of  all  this  when  we  were 
young,  and  when  an  ambassador,  nay,  even  a  pro- 
fessor, seemed  to  us  far  beyond  the  reach  of  our 
ambition.  I  could  go  on  mentioning  many  more 
names  of  men  with  whom  I  lived  at  Oxford  in  the 
most  delightful  intimacy,  and  who  afterwards 
turned  up  as  bishops,  archbishops,  judges,  ministers, 
and  all  the  rest.  True,  it  is  quite  natural  that  it 
should  be  so  with  a  man  who,  as  I  did,  began  his 
English  life  almost  as  an  undergraduate  among  un- 
dergraduates. Nearly  all  Englishmen  who  receive 
a  liberal  education  must  pass  either  through  Oxford 


28o  My  Autobiography 

or  through  Cambridge,  and  I  was  no  doubt  lucky 
in  making  thus  early  the  acquaintance  of  a  number 
of  men  who  later  in  life  became  deservedly  eminent. 
The  only  drawback  was  that,  knowing  my  friends 
very  intimately,  I  did  not  perhaps  later  preserve  on 
all  occasions  that  deference  which  the  dignity  of  an 
ambassador  or  of  an  archbishop  has  a  right  to  de- 
mand. 

Thomson  was  a  dear  friend  of  mine  when  he  was 
still  a  fellow  of  Queen's  College.  We  worked  to- 
gether, as  may  be  seen  by  my  contributions  to  his 
Laws  of  Thought,  and  the  translation  of  a  Vedic 
hymn  which  he  helped  me  to  make.  I  think  he 
had  a  kind  of  anticipation  of  what  was  in  store  for 
him.  Though  for  a  time  he  had  to  be  satisfied,  even 
when  he  was  married,  with  a  very  small  London 
living,  he  soon  rose  in  the  Church,  at  a  time  when 
clergymen  of  a  liberal  way  of  thinking  had  not 
much  chance  of  Crown  preferment.  But  having 
gone  at  the  head  of  a  deputation  to  Lord  Palmer- 
ston,  to  inform  him  that  Gladstone's  next  election 
as  member  for  Oxford  was  becoming  doubtful,  ow- 
ing to  all  the  bishoprics  being  given  to  the  Low 
Church  party — the  party  of  Lord  Shaftesbury — 
Palmerston  remembered  his  stately  and  courteous 
bearing,  and  when  the  see  of  Gloucester  fell  vacant, 
gave  him  that  bishopric  to  silence  Gladstone's  sup- 
porters. This  was  a  very  unexpected  preferment 
at  Oxford,  but  Thomson  made  such  good  use  of  his 
opportunity  that,  when  the  Archbishopric  of  York 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  281 

became  yacant,  and  Palmerston  found  it  difficult 
to  make  his  own  or  Lord  Shaftesbury's  nominee 
acceptable  to  the  Queen,  he  suggested  that  any  one 
of  the  lately  elected  bishops  approved  of  by  the 
Crown  might  go  to  York,  and  some  one  else  fill  the 
see  thus  vacated.  It  so  happened  that  Thomson's 
name  was  the  first  to  be  mentioned,  and  he  was 
made  Archbishop,  probably  one  of  the  youngest 
Archbishops  England  has  ever  known.  He  cer- 
tainly fulfilled  all  expectations  and  proved  himself 
the  people's  Archbishop,  for  he  was  himself  the  son 
of  a  small  tradesman,  a  fact  of  which  he  was  never 
ashamed,  though  his  enemies  did  not  fail  to  cast 
it  in  his  teeth.  I  confess  I  felt  at  first  a  little  awk- 
ward with  my  old  friend  who  formerly  had  dis- 
cussed every  possible  religious  and  philosophical 
problem  quite  freely  with  me,  and  was  now  His 
Grace  the  Lord  Archbishop,  with  a  palace  to  in- 
habit and  an  income  of  about  £10,000  a  year. 
However,  though  as  a  German  and  as  a  friend  of 
Bunsen  I  was  looked  upon  as  a  kind  of  heretic,  I 
never  made  the  Archbishop  blush  for  his  old  friend, 
and  I  always  found  him  the  same  to  the  end  of  his 
life,  kind,  courteous,  and  ready  to  help,  though  it 
is  but  fair  to  remember  that  an  Archbishop  of  York 
is  one  of  the  first  subjects  of  the  Queen,  and  cannot 
do  or  say  everything  that  he  might  like  to  do  or  to 
say.  When  I  had  to  ask  him  to  do  something  for 
a  friend  of  mine,  who  as  a  clergyman  had  given 
great  offence  by  his  very  liberal  opinions,  he  did 


282  My  Autobiography- 

all  he  could  do,  though  he  might  have  incurred 
great  obloquy  by  so  doing. 

But  when  I  think  of  these  men,  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances of  mine,  whom  I  remember  as  young 
men,  very  able  and  hard  working  no  doubt,  yet  not 
so  entirely  different  from  others  who  through  life 
remained  unknown,  it  is  as  if  I  had  slept  through 
a  number  of  years  and  dreamt,  and  had  then  sud- 
denly awoke  to  a  new  life.  Some  of  my  friends, 
I  am  glad  to  say,  I  always  found  the  same,  whether 
in  ermine  or  in  lawn  sleeves ;  others,  however,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  had  become  something,  the  old  boy  in 
them  had  vanished,  and  nothing  was  to  be  seen  ex- 
cept the  bishop,  the  judge,  or  the  minister. 

It  was  not  for  me  to  remind  them  of  their  former 
self,  and  to  make  them  doubt  their  own  identity, 
but  I  often  felt  the  truth  of  Matthew  Arnold's 
speeches,  who,  in  social  position,  never  rose  beyond 
that  of  inspector  of  schools,  and  w^ho  often  laughed 
when  at  great  dinners  he  found  himself  surrounded 
by  their  Graces,  their  Excellencies,  and  my  Lords, 
recognizing  faces  that  sat  below  him  at  school  and 
whose  names  in  the  class  lists  did  not  occupy  so  high 
a  place  as  his  own.  Not  that  Matthew  Arnold  was 
dissatisfied;  he  knew  his  worth,  but,  as  he  himself 
asked  for  nothing,  it  is  strange  that  his  friends 
should  never  have  asked  for  something  for  him, 
which  w^ould  have  shown  to  the  world  at  large  that 
he  had  not  been  left  behind  in  the  race.  It  strikes 
one  that  while  he  was  at  Oxford,  few  people  only 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  283 

detected  in  Arnold  the  poet  or  the  man  of  remark- 
able genius.     I  had  many  letters  from  him,  but  I 
never  kept  them,  and  I  often  blame  myself  now  that 
in  his,  as  in  other  cases,  I  should  have  thrown  away 
letters  as  of  no  importance.     Then  suddenly  came 
the  time  when  he  returned  to  Oxford  as  the  poet, 
as  the  Professor  of  poetry,  nay,  afterwards  as  the 
philosopher  also,   placed  high   by   public   opinion 
among  the  living  worthies  of  England.    What  wasl       ^ 
sometimes  against  him  was  his  want  of  seriousness.  - 
A  laugh  from  his  hearers  or  readers  seemed  to  be  ' 
more  valued  by  him  than  their  serious  opposition,  I 
or  their  convinced  assent.    He  trusted,  like  others,  I 
to  persiflage,  and  the  result  was  that  when  he  tried  | 
to  be  serious,  people  could  not  forget  that  he  might 
at  any  time  turn  round  and  smile,  and  decline  to 
be  taken  au  grand  serieux.     People  do  not  know 
what  a  dangerous  game  this  French  persiflage  is, 
particularly  in  England,  and  how  difficult  it  be- 
comes to  exchange  it  afterwards  for  real  seriousness. 
Those  early  Oxford  days  were  bright  days  for 
me,  and  now,  when  those  young  and  old  faces, 
whether   undergraduates   or   archbishops,   rise   up 
again  before  me,  I  being  almost  the  only  one  left 
of  that  happy  company,  I  ask  again,  "  Did  they 
also  belong  to  a  mere  dreamland,  they  who  gave 
life  to  my  life,  and  made  England  my  real  home?  " 
"When  I  first  saw  them  at  Oxford,  I  was  really  an 
undergraduate,  though  I  had  taken  my  Doctor's 
degree  at  Leipzig.    I  lived,  in  fact,  my  happy  uni- 


\ 


284  My  Autobiography 

versity  life  over  again,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to 
say  which  academical  years  I  enjoyed  more,  those 
at  Leipzig  and  Berlin,  or  those  at  Oxford.  There 
were  intermediate  years  in  Paris,  but  during  my 
stay  there  I  saw  but  little  of  students  and  student 
life.  I  was  too  much  oppressed  with  cares  and 
anxieties  about  my  present  and  future  to  think 
much  of  society  and  enjoyment.  At  Oxford,  these 
cares  had  become  far  less,  and  I  could  by  hard  work 
earn  as  much  money  as  I  wanted,  and  cared  to 
spend.  In  Paris,  I  was  already  something  of  a 
scholar  and  writer;  at  Oxford  I  became  once  more 
the  undergraduate. 

This  young  society  into  which  I  was  received  was 
certainly  most  attractive,  though  that  it  contained 
the  germs  of  future  greatness  never  struck  me  at 
the  time.  What  struck  me  was  the  general  tone  of 
the  conversation.  Of  course,  as  Lord  Palmerston 
said  of  himself  when  he  was  no  longer  very  young, 
"  boys  will  be  boys,"  but  there  never  was  anything 
rude  or  vulgar  in  their  conversation,  and  I  hardly 
ever  heard  an  offensive  remark  among  them.  Most 
of  my  friends  came  from  Balliol,  and  were  serious- 
minded  men,  many  of  them  occupied  and  troubled 
by  religious,  philosophical,  and  social  problems. 

What  puzzled  me  most  was  the  entire  absence  of 
duels.  Occasionally  there  were  squabbles  and  high 
words,  which  among  German  students  could  have 
had  one  result  only — a  duel.  But  at  Oxford,  either 
a  man  apologized  at  once  or  the  next  morning,  and 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  285 

the  matter  was  forgotten,  or,  if  a  man  proved  him- 
self a  cad  or  a  snob,  he  was  simply  dropped.  I  do 
not  mean  to  condemn  the  students'  duels  in  Ger- 
many altogether.  Considering  how  mixed  the  so- 
ciety of  German  universities  is,  and  the  perfect 
equality  that  reigns  among  them — they  all  called 
each  other  "  thou  "  in  my  time — the  son  of  a  gen- 
tleman required  some  kind  of  protection  against  the 
son  of  a  butcher  or  of  a  day-labourer.  Boxing  and 
fisticuffs  were  entirely  forbidden  among  students, 
so  that  there  remained  nothing  to  a  young  student 
who  wanted  to  escape  from  the  insults  of  a  young 
ruffian,  but  to  call  him  out.  As  soon  as  a  challenge 
was  given,  all  abuse  ceased  at  once,  and  such  was 
the  power  of  public  opinion  at  the  universities  that 
not  another  word  of  insult  would  be  uttered.  In 
this  way  much  mischief  is  prevented.  Besides, 
every  precaution  is  taken  to  guard  against  fatal 
accident,  and  I  believe  there  are  fewer  serious  acci- 
dents on  the  mensura  than  in  the  hunting-field  in 
England.  Wlien  I  was  at  Leipzig,  where  we  had 
at  least  four  hundred  duels  during  the  year,  only 
two  fatal  accidents  happened,  and  they  were,  in- 
deed, accidents,  such  as  will  happen  even  at  football. 
Of  course  duels  can  never  be  defended,  but  for  keep- 
ing up  good  manners,  also  for  bringing  out  a  man's 
character,  these  academic  duels  seem  useful.  How- 
ever small  the  danger  is,  it  frightens  the  coward 
and  restrains  the  poltroon.  For  all  that,  what  has 
taken  place  in  England  may  in  time  take  place  in 


286  My  Autobiography 

Germany  also,  and  men  will  cease  to  think  that  it 
is  impossible  to  defend  their  honour  without  a  piece 
of  steel  or  a  pistol.  The  last  thing  that  a  German 
student  desires  to  do  in  a  duel  is  to  kill  his  ad- 
versary. Hence  pistol  duels,  which  are  generally 
preferred  by  theological  students,  because  they  can- 
not easily  get  a  living  if  their  face  is  scarred  all  over, 
are  generally  the  most  harmless,  except  perhaps  for 
the  seconds. 

Before  closing  this  chapter,  I  should  like  to  say 
a  few  words  on  the  impressions  which  the  theolog- 
ical atmosphere  of  Oxford  in  1848  produced  on 
me,  and  which  even  now  fills  me  with  wonder  and 
amazement. 

When  I  came  to  Oxford,  I  was  strongly  recom- 
mended to  Stanley  on  one  side,  and  to  Manuel 
Johnson  on  the  other, — a  curious  mixture.  John- 
son, the  Observer,  was  extremely  kind  and  hospi- 
table to  me.  He  was  a  genial  man,  full  of  love,  pos- 
sibly a  little  weak,  but  thoroughly  honest,  nay, 
transparently  so.  I  met  at  his  house  nearly  all  the 
leaders  of  the  High  Church  movement,  though  I 
never  met  Newman  himself,  who  had  then  already 
gone  to  reside  at  his  retreat  at  Littlemore.  On  the 
other  hand,  Stanley  received  me  with  open  arms  as 
a  friend  of  Bunsen,  Frederick  Maurice,  and  Julius 
Hare,  and  as  I  came  straight  from  the  February 
revolution  in  1848,  he  was  full  of  interest  and  curi- 
osity to  know  from  me  what  I  had  seen  in  Paris. 

At  first  I  knew  nothing,  and  understood  nothing 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  287 

of  the  movement,  call  it  ecclesiastical  or  theological, 
that  was  going  on  at  Oxford  at  that  time.  I  dined 
almost  every  Sunday  at  Johnson's  house,  and  at  his 
dinners  and  Sunday  afternoon  garden  parties  I  met 
men  such  as  Church,  Mozley,  Buckle,  Palgrave, 
Pollen,  Rigaud,  Burgon,  and  Chretian,  who  in- 
spired me  with  great  respect,  both  for  their  learning 
and  for  what  I  could  catch  of  their  character.  Stan- 
ley, on  the  other  hand,  Froude,  and  Jowett,  proved 
themselves  true  friends  to  me  in  making  me  feel 
at  home,  and  initiating  me  into  the  secrets  of  the 
place.  There  was,  however,  a  curious  reticence  on 
both  sides,  and  it  was  by  sudden  glimpses  only  that 
I  came  to  understand  that  these  two  sets  were  quite 
divided,  nay,  opposed,  and  had  very  different  ideals 
before  them. 

I  had  been  at  a  German  university,  and  the  his- 
torical study  of  Christianity  was  to  me  as  familiar 
as  the  study  of  Roman  history.  Professors  whom 
I  had  looked  up  to  as  great  authorities,  implicitly 
to  be  trusted,  such  as  Lotze  and  Weisse  at  Leipzig, 
Schelling  and  Michelet  at  Berlin,  had,  after  causing 
in  me  a  certain  surprise  at  first,  left  me  with  the 
firm  conviction  that  the  Old  and  ISTew  Testament 
were  historical  books,  and  to  be  treated  according 
to  the  same  critical  principles  as  any  other  ancient 
book,  particularly  the  sacred  books  of  the  East  of 
which  so  little  was  then  known,  and  of  which  I  too 
knew  very  little  as  yet;  enough,  however,  to  see 
that  they  contained  nothing  but  what  under  the  cir- 


288  My  Autobiography 

cumstances  they  could  contain,  traditions  of  ex- 
treme antiquity  collected  by  men  who  gathered  all 
they  thought  would  be  useful  for  the  education  of 
the  people.  Anything  like  revelation  in  the  old 
sense  of  the  word,  a  belief  that  these  books  had 
been  verbally  communicated  by  the  Deity,  or  that 
what  seemed  miraculous  in  them  was  to  be  accepted 
as  historically  real,  simply  because  it  was  recorded 
in  these  sacred  books,  was  to  me  a  standpoint  long 
left  behind.  To  me  the  questions  that  occupied  ray 
thoughts  were  to  what  date  these  books,  such  as 
we  have  them,  could  be  assigned,  what  portions  of 
them  were  of  importance  to  us,  what  were  the  sim- 
ple truths  they  contained,  and  what  had  been  added 
to  them  by  later  collectors.  Well  do  I  remember 
when,  before  going  to  Oxford,  I  spoke  to  Bunsen 
of  the  preface  to  my  Rig-veda,  and  used  the  ex- 
pression, "  the  great  revelations  of  the  world,"  he, 
perfectly  understanding  what  I  meant,  warned  me 
in  his  loud  and  warm  voice,  "  Don't  say  that  at  Ox- 
ford." I  could  see  no  harm,  nor  Bunsen  either,  nor 
his  son  who  was  an  Oxford  man  and  a  clergyman 
of  the  Church  of  England;  but  I  was  told  that  I 
should  be  misunderstood.  I  knew  far  too  little  to 
imagine  that  I  had  a  right  to  speak  of  what  was 
fermenting  and  growing  within  me.  During  my 
stay  at  Leipzig  and  Berlin,  and  afterwards  in  my 
intercourse  with  Renan  and  Burnouf,  the  principles 
of  the  historical  school  had  become  quite  familiar 
to  me,  but  the  application  of  these  principles  to  the 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  289 

early  history  of  religion  was  a  different  matter. 
How  far  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  would 
stand  the  critical  tests  enunciated  by  Niebuhr  was  a 
frequent  subject  of  controversy,  during  the  time  I 
spent  at  Paris,  between  young  Renan  and  myself. 
Though  I  did  not  go  with  him  in  his  reconstruction 
of  the  history  of  the  Jews  and  the  Jewish  religion, 
and  of  the  early  Christians  and  the  Christian  relig- 
ion, I  agreed  with  him  in  principle,  objecting  only 
to  his  too  free  and  too  idyllic  reconstruction  of  these 
great  relig-ious  movements.  Besides,  before  all 
things,  I  was  at  that  time  given  to  philosophical 
studies,  chiefly  to  an  inquiry  into  the  limits  of  our 
knowledge  in  the  Kantian  sense  of  the  word,  the 
origin  of  thought  and  language,  the  first  faltering 
and  half-mythological  steps  of  language  in  the 
search  for  causes  or  divine  agents.  All  this  occu- 
pied me  far  more  than  the  age  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
and  its  position  by  the  side  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels. 
I  had  talked  with  Schelling  and  Schopenhauer,  and 
little  as  I  appreciated  or  understood  all  their  teach- 
ings, there  were  certain  aspirations  left  in  my  mind 
which  led  me  far  away  beyond  the  historical  foun- 
dations of  Christianity.  What  can  we  know?  was 
the  question  which  I  often  opposed  to  Renan  at  the 
very  beginning  of  our  conversations  and  controver- 
sies. That  there  were  great  truths  in  the  teaching 
and  preaching  of  Christ,  Renan  was  always  ready  to 
admit,  but  while  it  interested  me  how  the  truths  pro- 
claimed by  Christ  could  have  sprung  up  in  His 


290  My  Autobiography 

mind  and  at  that  time  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race,  Kenan's  eyes  were  always  directed  to  the  evi- 
dence, and  to  what  we  could  still  know  of  the  early 
history  of  Christianity  and  its  Founder.  I  could 
not  deny  that,  historically  speaking,  we  knew  very 
little  of  the  life,  the  work,  and  the  teachings  of 
Christ;  but  for  that  very  reason  I  doubted  our 
being  justified  in  giving  our  interpretation  and  re- 
construction to  the  fragments  left  to  us  of  the  real 
history  of  the  life  and  teaching  of  Christ.  To  this 
opinion  I  remained  true  through  life.  I  claimed 
for  each  man  the  liberty  of  believing  in  his  own 
Christ,  but  I  objected  to  Kenan's  idyllic  Christ  as 
I  objected  to  Niebuhr's  filling  the  canvas  of  ancient 
Roman  history  with  the  figures  of  his  own  imagina- 
tion. 

Naturally,  when  I  came  to  Oxford,  I  thought 
these  things  were  familiar  to  all,  however  much 
they  might  admit  of  careful  correction.  Nor  have 
I  any  doubt  that  to  some  of  my  friends  who  were 
great  theologians,  they  were  better  known  than  to 
a  young  Oriental  scholar  like  myself.  But  unless 
engaged  in  conversation  on  these  subjects,  and  this 
was  chiefly  the  case  with  my  friends  of  the  Stanley 
party,  I  did  not  feel  called  ui)on  to  preach  what,  as 
I  thought,  every  serious  student  knew  quite  as  well 
and  probably  much  better  than  myself,  though  he 
might  for  some  reason  or  other  prefer  to  keep  silence 
thereon. 

What  was  my  surprise  when  I  found  that  most  of 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  291 

these  excellent  and  really  learned  men  were  much 
more  deeply  interested  in  purely  ecclesiastical  ques- 
tions, in  the  validity  of  Anglican  orders,  in  the 
wearing  of  either  gowns  or  surplices  in  the  pulpit, 
in  the  question  of  candlesticks  and  genuflections. 
"  What  has  all  this  to  do  with  true  religion?  "  I 
once  said  to  dear  Johnson.  He  laughed  with  his 
genial  laugh,  and  blowing  the  smoke  of  his  cigar 
away,  said,  "  Oh,  you  don't  understand!  "  But  I 
did  understand,  and  a  great  deal  more  than  he  ex- 
pected. Truly  religious  men,  I  thought,  might 
please  themselves  with  incense  and  candlesticks, 
provided  they  gave  no  offence  to  their  neighbours. 
It  seemed  to  me  quite  natural  also  that  men  like 
Johnson,  with  a  taste  for  art,  should  prefer  the  Ro- 
man ritual  to  the  simple  and  sometimes  rather  bare 
service  of  the  Anglican  Church,  but  that  things 
such  as  incense  and  censers,  surplice  and  gown, 
should  be  taken  as  they  are,  as  paraphernalia,  the 
work  of  human  beings,  the  outcome  of  personal  and 
local  influences,  as  church-service,  no  doubt,  but 
not  as  service  of  God.  God  has  to  be  served  by 
very  different  things,  and  there  is  the  danger  of  the 
formal  prevailing  over  the  essential,  the  danger  of 
idolatry  of  symbols  as  realities,  whenever  too  much 
importance  is  attributed  to  the  external  forms  of 
worship  and  divine  service. 

The  validity  of  Anglican  orders  was  often  dis- 
cussed at  the  Observatory,  and  I  no  doubt  gave 
great  offence  by  openly  declaring  in  my  imperfect 


292  My  Autobiography 

English  that  I  considered  Luther  a  better  channel 
for  the  transmission  of  the  Holy  Ghost  than  a  Cae- 
sar Borgia  or  even  a  Wolsey.  Anyhow  I  could  not 
bring  myself  to  see  the  importance  of  such  ques- 
tions, if  only  the  heart  was  right  and  if  the  whole  of 
our  life  was  in  fact  a  real  and  constant  life  with 
God  and  in  God.  That  is  what  I  called  a  truly 
religious  and  truly  Christian  life.  What  struck  me 
particularly,  both  on  the  Newman  side,  and  among 
those  whom  I  met  at  Jowett's  and  Froude's,  was  a 
curious  want  of  openness  and  manliness  in  discuss- 
ing these  simple  questions,  simple,  if  not  compli- 
cated by  ecclesiastical  theories.  When  Newman  at 
Iffley  was  spoken  of,  it  was  in  hushed  tones,  and 
when  rumours  of  his  going  over  to  Rome  reached  his 
friends  at  Oxford,  their  consternation  seemed  to 
be  like  that  of  people  watching  the  deathbed  of  a 
friend.  I  am  sorry  I  saw  nothing  of  Newman  at 
that  time;  when  I  sat  with  him  afterwards  in  his 
study  at  Birmingham,  he  was  evidently  tired  of 
controversy,  and  unwilling  to  reopen  questions 
which  to  him  were  settled  once  for  all,  or  if  not 
settled,  at  all  events  closed  and  relinquished.  I 
could  never  form  a  clear  idea  of  the  man,  much  as 
I  admired  his  sennons;  his  brother  and  his  own 
friends  gave  such  different  accounts  of  him.  That 
even  at  Littlemore  he  was  still  faithful  to  his  own 
national  Church,  anxious  only  to  bring  it  nearer  to 
its  ancient  possibly  Roman  type,  can  hardly  be 
doubted.     When  he  wrote  from  Littlemore  to  his 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  293 

friend  De  Lisle,  he  had  no  reason  to  economize  the 
truth.  De  Lisle  hoped  that  Newman  would  soon 
openly  join  the  Church  of  Rome,  but  Newman  an- 
swered :  "  You  must  allow  me  to  be  honest  with  you 
in  adding  one  thing.  A  distressing  feeling  arises  in 
my  mind  that  such  marks  of  kindness  as  these  on 
your  part  are  caused  by  a  belief  that  I  am  ever 
likely  to  join  your  communion  ...  I  must  as- 
sure you  then  with  great  sincerity  that  I  have  not 
the  shadow  of  an  internal  movement  known  to  my- 
self towards  such  a  step.  While  God  is  with  me 
where  I  am,  I  will  not  seek  Him  elsewhere.  I 
might  almost  say  in  the  words  of  Scripture,  '  We 
have  found  the  Messias!  '     .     .     ." 

How  true  this  is,  and  yet  the  same  Newman  went 
over  to  the  unreformed  Church,  because  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  had  sanctioned  Bunsen's  pro- 
posal of  an  Anglo-German  bishopric  of  Jerusalem, 
quite  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  Synesius  also  had 
been  bishop  of  Ptolemais.  Again  I  say,  What  have 
such  matters  to  do  with  true  religion,  such  as  we 
read  of  in  the  New  Testament,  as  an  ideal  to  be 
realized  in  our  life  on  earth?  And  it  so  happened 
that  at  the  same  time  I  knew  of  families  rendered 
miserable  through  Newman's  influence,  of  young 
girls,  daughters  of  narrow-minded  Anglicans,  hur- 
ried over  to  Rome,  of  young  men  at  Oxford  with 
their  troubled  consciences  which  under  Newman's 
direct  or  indirect  guidance  could  end  only  in  Rome. 
Newman's  influence  must  have  been  extraordinary; 


294  My  Autobiugraphy 

the  tone  in  which  people  who  wished  to  free  them- 
selves from  him,  who  had  actually  left  him,  spoke 
of  him,  seemed  tremulous  with  awe.  I  would  give 
anything  to  have  known  him  at  that  time,  when 
I  knew  him  through  his  disciples  only.  They  were 
caught  in  various  ways.  I  knew  of  one,  a  brilliant 
writer,  who  had  been  entrusted  by  Newman  with 
writing  some  of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints.  He  did 
it  with  great  industry,  but  in  the  course  of  his 
researches  he  arrived  at  the  conviction  that  there 
was  hardly  anything  truly  historical  about  his 
Saints  and  that  the  miracles  ascribed  to  them  were 
insipid,  and  might  be  the  inventions  of  their  friends; 
such  legends,  he  felt,  would  take  no  root  on  English 
soil,  at  all  events  not  in  the  present  generation.  In 
consequence  he  informed  Newman  that  he  could 
not  keep  his  promise,  or  that,  if  he  did  so,  he  must 
speak  the  truth,  tell  people  what  they  might  believe 
about  these  Saints,  and  what  was  purely  fanciful 
in  the  accounts  of  their  lives.  And  what  was  New- 
man's answer?  He  did  not  respect  the  young  man's 
scruples,  but  encouraged  him  to  go  on,  because,  as 
he  said,  people  would  never  believe  more  than  half 
of  these  Lives,  and  that  therefore  some  of  these  un- 
supported legends  also  might  prove  useful,  if  only 
as  a  kind  of  ballast. 

"  I  rejoice  to  hear  of  your  success,"  he  writes, 
August  21,  1843.  "  As  to  St.  Grimball,  of  course 
we  must  expect  such  deficiencies;  where  matter  is 
found,  it  is  all  gain,  and  there  are  plenty  of  Lives 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  295 

to  put  together,  as  you  will  sec,  when  you  see  the 
whole  list. 

"  I  am  rather  for  inserting  (of  course  discreetly 
and  in  way  of  selection)  the  miracles  for  which  you 
have  not  good  evidence.  (1)  They  are  beautiful, 
you  say,  and  will  tell  in  the  narrative.  (2)  Next 
you  can  say  that  the  evidence  is  weak,  and  this 
will  be  bringing  credit  for  the  others  where  you 
say  the  evidence  is  strong.  People  will  never  go 
so  far  as  your  narrative.  Cut  it  down  to  what  is 
true,  and  they  will  disbelieve  a  part  of  it;  put  in 
these  legends  and  they  will  compound  for  the  true 
at  the  sacrifice  of  what  may  be  true,  but  is  not 
well  attested." 

I  confess  I  cannot  quite  follow.  If  a  man  like 
Newman  believed  in  these  saints  and  their  mir- 
acles, his  pleading  would  become  intelligible,  but 
it  seems  from  this  very  letter  that  he  did  not,  and 
yet  he  tried  to  persuade  his  young  friend  to  go  on 
and  not  to  gather  the  tares,  "  lest  haply  he  might 
root  up  the  wheat  with  them.  Let  both  grow  to- 
gether until  the  harvest."  I  do  not  like  to  judge, 
but  I  doubt  whether  this  kind  of  teaching  could 
have  strengthened  the  healthy  moral  fibre  of  a 
man's  conscience  and  have  led  him  to  depend  en- 
tirely on  his  sense  of  truth.  And  yet  this  was  the 
man  who  at  one  time  was  supposed  to  draw  the  best 
spirits  of  Oxford  with  him  to  Rome.  This  was  the 
man  to  whom  some  of  the  best  spirits  at  Oxford 
confessed  all  thev  had  to  confess,  and  that  could 


296  My  Autobiography 

have  been  very  little,  and  of  whom  they  spoke  with 
a  subdued  whisper  as  the  apostle  who  would  restore 
all  faith,  and  bring  back  the  Anglican  sheep  to  the 
Roman  fold. 

I  saw  and  heard  all  that  was  going  on,  the  hopes 
deferred,  the  secret  ^dsits  to  Littlemore,  the  rumours 
and  more  than  rumours  of  Newman's  defection. 
Such  was  the  devotion  of  some  of  these  disciples 
that  they  expected  day  by  day  a  great  catastrophe 
or  a  great  victory,  for  after  the  publication  of  so 
many  letters  written  at  the  time  by  Wiseman,  Man- 
ning, De  Lisle,  and  others,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  a  great  conversion  or  perversion  of  England 
to  the  Romish  Church  was  fully  expected.  De 
Lisle  writes:  "  England  is  now  in  full  career  of  a 
great  Religious  Revolution,  this  time  back  to  Ca- 
tholicism and  to  the  Roman  See  as  its  true  centre 
.  .  .  the  best  friends  of  Rome  in  the  Anglican 
Church  are  obliged  still  to  be  guarded."  Such 
w^ords  admit  of  one  meaning  only,  and  if  Newman 
had  been  followed  by  a  large  number  of  his  Oxford 
friends,  the  results  for  England  might  really  have 
been  most  terrible.  But  here,  no  doubt,  the  Eng- 
lish national  feeling  came  in.  What  England  had 
suffered  under  Roman  ecclesiastical  rule  had  not 
yet  been  entirely  forgotten,  and  the  idea  that  a 
foreign  potentate  and  a  foreign  priesthood  should 
interfere  with  the  highest  interests  of  the  nation, 
was  fortunately  as  distasteful  as  ever,  not  only  to  a 
large  party  of  the  clergy,  but  to  a  still  larger  party 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  297 

of  the  laity  also.  It  seemed  to  me  very  curious  that 
so  many  of  Newman's  followers  did  not  see  the 
unpatriotic  character  of  their  agitation.  Either 
subjection  to  Rome  or  civil  war  at  home  was  the 
inevitable  outcome  of  what  they  discussed  very 
innocently  at  the  Observatory,  and  little  as  I 
understood  their  schemes  for  the  future,  I  often 
felt  surprised  at  what  sounded  to  me  like  very 
unpatriotic  utterances. 

Another  thing  that  struck  me  as  utterly  un-Eng- 
lish and  has  often  been  dwelt  on  by  the  historians 
of  this  movement,  was  the  curiously  secret  char- 
acter of  the  agitation.  "What  has  an  Englishman 
to  fear  when  he  openly  protests  against  what  he 
disapproves  of  in  Church  or  State?  But  Newman's 
friends  at  Oxford  behaved  really,  as  has  been  often 
said,  like  so  many  naughty  schoolboys,  or  like  con- 
spirators, yet  they  were  neither.  A  very  similar 
charge,  how^ever,  was  brought  against  the  liberal 
party.  They  also  seemed  to  think  that  they  were 
out  of  bounds,  and  were  doing  in  secret  what  they 
did  not  dare  to  do  openly.  It  is  well  knowm  that 
one  friend  of  Newman's,  who  afterwards  became  a 
Roman  Catholic,  had  a  small  chapel  set  up  in  his 
bedroom  in  college,  with  pictures  and  candles  and 
instruments  of  flagellation.  No  one  was  allowed 
to  see  this  room,  till  one  evening  when  the  flagellant 
had  retired  after  dinner  and  fallen  asleep,  the  ser- 
vants found  him  lying  before  the  altar.  Nothing 
remained  to  him  then  but  to  exchange  his  comfort- 


298  My  Autobiography 

able  college  rooms  for  the  less  comfortable  cell  of  a 
Roman  monastery,  and  little  was  done  by  his  new 
friends  to  make  the  evening  of  his  life  serene  and 
free  from  anxiety.  These  things  were  known  and 
talked  about  in  Oxford,  and  generally  with  any- 
thing but  the  seriousness  that  the  subject  seemed 
to  me  to  require.  Again  at  the  Observatory  a  point 
was  made  of  having  games  in  the  garden  such  as 
hoccia  on  a  Sunday  afternoon,  thus  evading  the 
strict  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  without  openly 
trying  to  restore  to  it  the  character  which  it  had 
in  Roman  Catholic  countries. 

German  theology  was  talked  about  as  a  kind  of 
forbidden  fruit,  as  if  it  was  not  right  for  them  to 
look  at  it,  to  taste  it,  or  to  examine  it.  Even  years 
later  people  were  afraid  to  meet  Professor  Ewald, 
Bishop  Colenso,  and  other  so-called  heretics  at  my 
house.  They  even  fell  on  poor  Ewald  at  an  evening 
party.  Ewald  was  staying  with  me  and  working 
hard  at  some  Hebrew  MSS.  at  the  Bodleian.  He 
was  then  already  an  old  man,  but  in  his  appearance 
a  powerful  and  venerable  champion.  He  is  the  only 
man  I  remember  who,  after  copying  Hebrew  MSS. 
for  twelve  hours  at  the  Bodleian  with  nothing  but 
a  sand^vich  to  sustain  him,  complained  of  the  short 
time  allowed  there  for  work.  He  came  home  for 
dinner  very  tired,  and  when  the  conversation  or 
rather  the  disputation  began  between  him  and  some 
of  our  young  liberal  theologians,  he  spoke  in  short 
pithy  sentences  only.     He  considered  himself  per- 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  299 

fectly  orthodox,  nay,  one  of  the  pillars  of  religion  in 
Germany,  and  laid  down  the  law  with  unhesitating 
conviction.  As  far  as  I  can  remember,  he  was 
answering  a  number  of  questions  about  St.  Paul, 
and  what  he  thought  of  Christ,  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ,  and  the  Life  to  come,  and  being  pestered 
and  driven  into  a  corner  by  his  various  questioners, 
and  asked  at  last  how  he  knew  St.  Paul's  secret 
thoughts,  he  not  knowing  how  to  express  himself 
in  fluent  English,  exclaimed  in  a  loud  voice,  "  I 
know  it  by  the  Holy  Ghost."  Here  the  conver- 
sation naturally  stopped,  and  poor  Ewald  was  al- 
lowed to  finish  his  dinner  in  peace.  He  had  been 
Professor  at  Bonn,  when  Pusey  came  there  as  a 
young  man  to  study  Hebrew  after  he  had  been  ap- 
pointed Canon  of  Christ  Church  and  Professor  of 
Hebrew,  and  he  expressed  to  me  a  wish  to  see  Dr. 
Pusey.  I  told  him  it  would  not  be  easy  to  arrange 
a  meeting,  considering  how  strongly  opposed  Dr. 
Pusey  was  to  Ewald's  opinions.  Personally  I  al- 
ways found  Pusey  tolerant,  and  his  kindness  to  me 
was  a  surprise  to  all  my  young  friends.  But  the 
fact  was,  we  moved  on  different  planes,  and  though 
he  knew  my  religious  opinions  well,  they  only  ex- 
cited a  smile,  and  he  often  said  with  a  sigh,  "  I  know 
you  are  a  German."  His  own  idea  was  that  he  was 
placed  at  Oxford  in  order  to  save  the  younger  gen- 
eration from  seeing  the  abyss  into  which  he  him- 
self had  looked  with  terror.  He  had  read  more 
heresy,  he  used  to  say,  than  anybody,  and  he  wished 


300  My  Autobiography 

no  one  to  pass  tlirougli  the  trials  and  agonies 
through  which  he  had  passed,  chiefly,!  should  think, 
during  his  stay  at  a  German  university.  The  his- 
torical element  was  wanting  in  him,  nay,  like  Hegel, 
he  sometimes  seemed  to  lay  stress  on  the  unhistorical 
character  of  Christianity.  My  idea,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  that  Christianity  was  a  true  historical 
event,  prepared  by  many  events  that  had  gone  be- 
fore and  alone  made  it  possible  and  real.  Even  the 
abyss,  if  there  were  such  an  abyss,  was,  as  it  seemed 
to  me,  meant  to  be  there  on  our  passage  through  life, 
and  was  to  be  faced  with  a  brave  heart. 

But  to  return  to  my  first  experiences  of  the 
theological  atmosphere  of  Oxford,  I  confess  I  felt 
puzzled  to  see  men,  whose  learning  and  character 
I  sincerely  admired,  absorbed  in  subjects  which  to 
my  mind  seemed  simply  childish.  I  expected  I 
should  hear  from  them  some  new  views  on  the  date 
of  the  gospels,  the  meaning  of  revelation,  the  his- 
torical value  of  revelation,  or  the  early  history  of 
the  Church.  'No,  of  all  this  not  a  word.  Nothing 
but  discussions  on  vestments,  on  private  confession, 
on  candles  on  the  altar,  whether  they  were  wanted 
or  not,  on  the  altar  being  made  of  stone  or  of  wood, 
of  consecrated  wine  being  mixed  with  water,  of  the 
priest  turning  his  back  on  the  congregation,  &c. 
I  could  not  understand  how  these  men,  so  high 
above  the  ordinary  level  of  men  in  all  other  respects, 
could  put  aside  the  fundamental  questions  of  Chris- 
tianity and  give  their  whole  mind  to  what  seemed 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  301 

to  lue  rightly  called  in  the  newspapers  "  mere  mil- 
linery." I  sought  information  from  Stanley,  but 
he  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  advised  me  to  keep 
aloof  and  say  nothing.  This  I  was  most  willing  to 
do;  I  eared  for  none  of  these  things.  My  mind 
was  occupied  with  far  more  serious  problems,  such 
as  I  had  heard  explained  by  men  of  profound  learn- 
ing and  honest  purpose  in  the  great  universities  of 
Germany;  these  troubles  arose  from  questions 
which  seemed  to  me  to  have  no  connexion  with  true 
religion  at  all.  Even  the  differences  between  the 
reformed  and  unreformed  churches  were  to  me 
mere  questions  of  history,  mere  questions  of  human 
expediency.  I  did  not  consider  Roman  Catholics 
as  heretics — I  had  known  too  many  of  them  of  un- 
blemished character  in  Germany.  I  might  have 
regretted  the  abuses  which  called  for  reform,  the 
excrescences  which  had  disfigured  Christianity  like 
many  other  religions,  but  which  might  be  tolerated 
as  long  as  they  did  not  lead  to  toleration  for  intoler- 
ance. Luther  might  no  longer  appear  to  me  in  the 
light  of  a  perfect  saint,  but  that  he  was  right  in 
suppressing  the  time-honoured  abuses  of  the  Koman 
Church  admitted  with  me  of  no  doubt  whatsoever. 
Large  numbers  always  had  that  effect  on  me,  and 
when  I  saw  how  many  good  and  excellent  men  were 
satisfied  with  the  unreformed  teaching  of  the  Ro- 
man Church,  T  felt  convinced  that  they  must  attach 
a  different  meaning  to  certain  doctrines  and  ecclesi- 
astical practices  from  what  we  did.    I  had  learned 


302  My  Autobiography 

to  discover  what  was  good  and  tnie  in  all  religions, 
and  I  could  fully  agree  with  Macaulay  when  he 
said,  "  If  people  had  lived  in  a  country  where  very 
sensible  people  worshipped  the  cow,  they  would 
not  fall  out  with  people  who  worship  saints." 

I  know  that  many  of  my  friends  on  both  sides 
looked  upon  me  as  a  latitudinarian,  but  my  convic- 
tion has  always  been  that  we  could  not  be  broad 
enough.  They  looked  upon  me  as  wishing  to  keep 
on  good  terms  with  high  and  low  and  broad,  and 
I  made  no  secret  of  it,  that  I  thought  I  could  under- 
stand Pusey  as  well  as  Stanley,  and  assign  to  each 
his  proper  place.  Stanley  was  of  course  more  after 
my  own  heart  than  Pusey,  but  Pusey  too  was  a  man 
who  interested  me  very  much.  I  saw  that  he  might 
become  a  great  power  whether  for  good  or  for  evil 
in  England.  He  was,  in  fact,  a  historical  character, 
and  these  were  always  the  men  who  interested  me. 
He  was  fully  aware  of  his  importance  in  England, 
and  the  great  influence  which  his  name  exercised. 
That  influence  was  not  always  exercised  in  the  right 
way,  so  at  least  it  seemed  to  me,  particularly  when 
it  was  directed  against  such  friends  of  mine  as 
Kingsley,  Froude,  or  Jowett.  Once,  I  remember, 
when  he  had  come  to  my  house,  I  ventured  to  tell 
him  that  he  could  not  have  meant  what  he  had  said 
in  declaring  that  the  God  worshipped  b}'  Frederic 
Maurice  was  not  the  same  as  his  God.  Curious  to 
say,  he  relented,  and  admitted  that  he  had  used  too 
strong  language.     To  me  everything  that  was  said 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  303 

of  God  seemed  imperfect,  and  never  to  apply  to  God 
Himself  but  only  to  the  idea  which  the  human  mind 
had  formed  of  Him.  To  me  even  the  Hindu,  if  he 
spoke  of  Brahman  or  Krishna,  seemed  to  have 
aimed  at  the  true  God,  in  spite  of  the  idolatrous 
epithets  which  he  used;  then  how  could  a  man  like 
Prederic  Maurice  be  said  to  have  worshipped  a  dif- 
ferent God,  considering  that  we  all  can  but  feel 
after  Him  in  the  dark,  not  being  able  to  do  more 
than  exclude  all  that  seems  to  us  unworthy  of  Deity? 

A  very  important  element  in  the  ecclesiastical 
views  of  some  of  my  friends  was,  no  doubt,  the  ar- 
tistic. If  Johnson  leant  towards  Rome,  it  was  the 
more  ornate  and  beautiful  service  that  touched  and 
attracted  him.  I  sat  near  to  him  in  St.  Giles' 
Church;  he  told  me  what  to  do  and  what  not  to 
do  during  service.  In  spite  of  the  Prayer-book,  it 
is  by  no  means  so  easy  as  people  imagine  to  do  ex- 
actly the  right  thing  in  church,  and  I  had  of  course 
to  learn  a  number  of  prayers  and  responses  by  heart. 
To  me  the  service,  as  it  was  in  my  parish  church, 
seemed  already  too  ornate,  accustomed  as  I  had  been 
to  the  somewhat  bare  and  cold  service  in  the  Lu- 
theran Church  at  Dessau.  But  Johnson  constantly 
complained  about  the  monotonous  and  mechanical 
performances  of  the  clergy.  He  had  a  strong  feel- 
ing for  all  that  was  beautiful  and  impressive  in  art, 
and  he  wanted  to  see  the  service  of  God  in  church 
full  both  of  reverence  and  beauty. 

Johnson's  private  collection  of  artistic  treasures 


304  My  Autobiography 

was  very  considerable,  and  I  learnt  mucli  from  the 
Italian  engravings  and  Dutch  etchings  which  he 
possessed  and  delighted  in  showing.  I  often  spent 
happy  hours  with  him  examining  his  portfolios,  and 
wondered  how  he  could  afford  to  buy  such  treasures. 
But  he  knew  when  and  where  to  buy,  and  I  believe 
when  his  collection  was  sold  after  his  death,  it 
brought  a  good  deal  more  than  it  had  cost  him. 
Another  collection  of  art  was  that  of  Dr.  Wellesley, 
the  Principal  of  New  Inn  Hall,  who  was  a  friend  of 
Johnson's  and  had  collected  most  valuable  antiq- 
uities during  his  long  stay  in  Italy.  He  was  the 
son  of  the  Marquis  of  Wellesley,  a  handsome  man, 
with  all  the  refinement  and  courtesy  of  the  old 
English  gentleman.  Though  not  perhaps  very 
useful  in  the  work  of  the  University,  he  was  most 
pleasant  to  live  with,  and  full  of  information  in  his 
own  line  of  study,  the  history  of  art,  chiefly  of 
Italian  art. 

The  beautiful  services  of  the  Roman  Church 
abroad,  and  particularly  at  Rome,  certainly  exer- 
cised a  kind  of  magic  attraction  on  many  of  the 
friends  of  Wiseman  and  Newman,  though  one  won- 
ders that  the  sunny  grandeur  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome 
should  ever  have  seemed  more  impressive  than  the 
sombre  sublimity  and  serene  magnificence  of  West- 
minster Abbey.  Unfortunately,  the  introduction  of 
a  more  ornate  service,  even  of  harmless  candlesticks 
and  the  often  very  useful  incense,  had  always  a 
secret  meaning.     They  were  used  as  symbols  of 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  305 

sometliing  of  which  the  people  had  no  conception, 
whereas  in  the  early  Church  they  had  been  really 
natural  and  useful. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  commotion,  and  chiefly 
secret  commotion,  I  felt  a  perfect  stranger;  I  saw 
the  bright  and  dark  sides,  but  I  confess  I  saw  little 
of  what  I  called  religion.  Though  my  own  religious 
struggles  lay  behind  me,  still  there  were  many  ques- 
tions which  pressed  for  a  solution,  but  for  which  my 
friends  at  Oxford  seemed  either  indifferent  or  un- 
prepared. My  practical  religion  was  what  I  had 
learnt  from  my  mother;  that  remained  unshaken  in 
all  storms,  and  in  its  extreme  simplicity  and  childish- 
ness answered  all  the  purposes  for  wliich  religion 
is  meant.  Then  followed,  in  the  Universities  of 
Leipzig  and  Berlin,  the  purely  historical  and  scien- 
tific treatment  of  religion,  which,  while  it  explained 
many  things  and  destroyed  many  things,  never  in- 
terfered with  my  early  ideas  of  right  and  wrong, 
never  disturbed  my  life  with  God  and  in  God,  and 
seemed  to  satisfv  all  mv  religious  wants.  I  never 
was  frightened  or  shaken  by  the  critical  writings  of 
Strauss  or  Ewald,  of  Kenan  or  Colenso.  If  what 
they  said  had  an  honest  ring,  I  was  delighted,  for 
I  felt  quite  certain  that  they  could  never  deprive 
me  of  the  little  I  really  wanted.  That  little  could 
never  be  little  enough;  it  was  like  a  stronghold  with 
no  fortifications,  no  trenches,  and  no  walls  around  it. 
Suppose  it  was  proved  to  me  that,  on  geological 
evidence,  the  earth  or  the  world  could  not  have 


306  My  Autobiography 

been  created  in  six  days,  what  was  that  to  me? 
Suppose  it  was  proved  to  me  that  Christ  could  never 
liave  given  leave  to  the  unclean  spirits  to  enter  into 
the  swine,  what  was  that  to  me?  Let  Colenso  and 
Bishop  Wilberforce,  let  Huxley  and  Gladstone  fight 
about  such  matters;  their  turbulent  waves  could 
never  disturb  me,  could  never  even  reach  me  in  my 
safe  harbour.  I  had  little  to  carry,  no  learned 
impedimenta  to  safeguard  my  faith.  If  a  man  pos- 
sesses this  one  pearl  of  great  price,  he  may  save  him- 
self and  his  treasure,  but  neither  the  tinselled  vest- 
ments of  a  Cardinal,  nor  the  triple  tiara  that  crowns 
the  Head  of  the  Church,  will  serve  as  life-belts  in 
the  gales  of  doubt  and  controversy.  My  friends  at 
Oxford  did  not  know  that,  though  with  my  one 
jewel  I  seemed  outwardly  poor,  I  was  really  richer 
and  safer  than  many  a  Cardinal  and  many  a  Doctor 
of  Divinity.  A  confession  of  faith,  like  a  prayer, 
may  be  very  long,  but  the  prayer  of  the  Publican 
may  have  been  more  efficient  than  that  of  the 
Pharisee. 

After  a  time  I  made  an  even  more  painful  dis- 
covery: I  found  men,  who  were  considered  quite 
orthodox,  but  who  really  were  without  any  belief. 
They  spoke  to  me  very  freely,  because  they  im- 
agined that  as  a  German  I  would  think  as  they  did, 
and  that  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  they  looked  on 
me  as  not  quite  sincere.  It  was  not  only  honest 
doubt  that  disturbed  them.  They  had  done  with 
honest  doubt,  and  they  were  satisfied  with  a  kind 


Early  Friends  at  Oxford  307 

of  Voltairian  philosophy,  which  at  last  ended  in  pure 
agnosticism.  But  even  that,  even  professed  agnosti- 
cism, I  could  understand,  because  it  often  meant  no 
more  than  a  confession  of  ignorance  with  regard  to 
God,  which  we  all  confess,jindjieed  not  necessarily 
amount  to  the  denial  of  the  existence  of  Deity.  \ 
But  that  Voltairian  levity  which  scoffs  at  every- 
thing connected  with  religion  was  certainly  some- 
thing I  did  not  expect  to  meet  with  at  Oxford,  and 
which  even  now  perplexes  me.  Of  course,  I  should 
never  think  of  mentioning  names,  but  it  seemed  to 
me  necessary  to  mention  the  fact,  to  complete  the 
curious  mosaic  of  theological  and  religious  thought 
that  existed  at  Oxford  at  the  time  of  my  arrival. 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  CONFESSION 

One  confession  I  have  to  make,  and  one  for 
which  I  can  hardly  hope  for  absolution,  whether 
from  my  friends  or  from  my  enemies.  I  have  never 
done  anything;  I  have  never  been  a  doer,  a  can- 
A'asser,  a  wirepuller,  a  manager,  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  these  words.  I  have  also  shrunk  from 
agitation,  from  clubs  and  from  cliques,  even  from 
most  respectable  associations  and  societies.  Many 
people  would  call  me  an  idle,  useless,  and  indolent 
man,  and  though  I  have  not  wasted  many  hours  of 
my  life,  I  cannot  deny  the  charge  that  I  have 
neither  fought  battles,  nor  helped  to  conquer  new 
countries,  nor  joined  any  syndicate  to  roll  up  a  fort- 
une. I  have  been  a  scholar,  a  Stuhengelehrter,  and 
voild  tout! 

Much  as  I  admired  Ruskin  when  I  saw  him  with 
his  spade  and  wheelbarrow,  encouraging  and  help- 
ing his  undergraduate  friends  to  make  a  new  road 
from  one  village  to  another,  I  never  myself  took  to 
digging,  and  shovelling,  and  carting.  Nor  could 
I  quite  agree  with  him,  happy  as  I  always  felt  in 
listening  to  him,  when  he  said:  "  What  we  think,  or 

308 


A  Confession 


309 


what  we  know,  or  what  we  believe,  is  in  the  end  of 
little  consequence.  The  only  thing  of  consequence 
is  what  we  do."  My  view  of  life  has  always  been 
the  very  opposite!  What  we  do,  or  what  we  build 
up,  has  always  seemed  to  me  of  little  consequence. 
Even  Nineveh  is  now  a  mere  desert  of  sand,  and 
Ruskin's  new  road  also  has  long  since  been  worn 
away.  The  only  thing  of  consequence,  to  my  mind, 
is  what  we  think,  what  we  know,  what  wc  believe! 
To  Ruskin's  ears  such  a  sentiment  was  downright 
heresy,  and  I  know  quite  well  that  it  would  be  con- 
demned as  extremely  dangerous,  if  not  downright 
wicked,  by  most  people,  particularly  in  England. 
My  friend,  Charles  Kingsley,  preached  muscular 
Christianity,  that  is,  he  was  always  up  and  doing. 
Another  old  friend  of  mine,  Carlyle,  preached  all 
his  life  that  "  it  was  no  use  talking,  if  one  would  not 
do."    There  is  an  old  proverb  in  German,  too, 

"  Die  nicht  mit  thaten, 
Die  nicht  mit  rathen  ' ' ; 

actually  denying  the  right  of  giving  advice  to  those 
who  had  not  taken  a  part  in  the  fight. 

However,  though  I  have  not  been  a  doer,  a 
faiseur,  as  the  French  would  say,  I  do  not  wish 
to  represent  myself  as  a  mere  idle  drone  during  the 
long  years  of  my  quiet  life.  Nor  did  I  stand  quite 
alone  in  looking  on  a  scholar's  life — even  when  I 
was  living  in  a  garret  au  cinquieme — as  a  paradise 


310  My  Autobiography 

on  earth.  Did  not  Emerson  write,  "  The  scholar 
is  the  man  of  the  age  "  ?  Did  not  even  Mazziui, 
who  certainly  was  constantly  up  and  trying  to  do, 
did  not  even  he  confess  that  men  must  die,  but 
that  the  amount  of  truth  they  have  discovered  does 
not  die  with  them?  And  Carlyle?  Did  he  ever 
try  to  get  into  Parliament?  Did  he  ever  accept 
directorates?  Did  he  join  either  the  Chartists  or 
the  Special  Constables  in  Trafalgar  Square?  As 
in  a  concert  you  want  listeners  as  well  as  perform- 
ers, so  in  public  life,  those  who  look  on  are  quite 
as  essential  as  those  who  shout  and  deal  heavy 
blows. 

Nature  has  not  endowed  everybody  with  the 
requisite  muscle  to  be  a  muscular  Christian.  But 
it  may  be  said,  that  even  if  Carlyle  and  Ruskin 
were  absolved  from  doing  muscular  work  in  Trafal- 
gar Square,  what  excuse  could  they  plead  for  not 
walking  in  procession  to  Hyde  Park,  climbing  up 
one  of  the  platforms  and  haranguing  the  men  and 
women  and  children?  I  suppose  they  had  the  feel- 
ing which  the  razor  has  when  it  is  used  for  cutting 
stones:  they  would  feel  that  it  was  not  exactly 
their  metier.  Arguing  when  reason  meets  reason 
is  most  delightful,  whether  we  win  or  lose;  but 
arguing  against  unreason,  against  anything  that  is 
by  nature  thick,  dense,  impenetrable,  irrational,  has 
always  seemed  to  me  the  most  disheartening  oc- 
cupation. Majorities,  mere  numerical  majorities, 
by  which  the  world  is  governed  now,  strike  me 


A  Confession 


311 


as  mere  brute  force,  though  to  argue  against  them 
is  no  doubt  as  foolish  as  arguing  against  a  railway 
train  that  is  going  to  crush  you.  Gladstone  could 
harangue  multitudes;  so  could  Disraeli;  all  honour 
to  them  for  it.  But  think  of  Carlyle  or  Ruskin 
doing  so!  Stroking  the  shell  of  a  tortoise,  or  the 
cupola  of  St.  Paul's,  would  have  been  no  more 
attractive  to  them  than  addressing  the  discontented, 
when  in  their  hundreds  and  their  thousands  they 
descended  into  the  streets.  All  I  claim  is  that 
there  must  be  a  division  of  labour,  and  as  Uttle 
as  Wayland  Smith  was  useless  in  his  smithy,  when 
he  hardened  the  iron  in  the  fire  for  making  swords 
or  horse-shoes,  was  Carlvle  a  man  that  could  be 
spared,  while  he  sat  in  his  study  preparing  thoughts 
that  would  not  bend  or  break. 

But  I  cannot  even  claim  to  have  been  a  man  of 
action  in  the  sense  in  which  Carlyle  was  in  England, 
or  Emerson  in  America.  They  were  men  who  in 
their  books  were  constantly  teaching  and  preaching. 
"  Do  this!  "  they  said;  "  Do  not  do  that!  "  The 
Jewish  prophets  did  much  the  same,  and  they  are 
not  considered  to  have  been  useless  men,  though 
they  did  not  make  bricks,  or  fight  battles  like  Jehu. 
But  the  poor  Stuhengelehrie  has  not  even  that  com- 
fort. Only  now  and  then  he  gets  some  unexpected 
recognition,  as  when  Lord  Derby,  then  Secretary 
of  State  for  India,  declared  that  the  scholars  who 
had  discovered  and  proved  the  close  relationship  be- 
tween Sanskrit  and  English,  had  rendered  more  val- 


312  My  Autobiography 

uable  service  to  the  Government  of  India  than  many 
a  regiment.  This  may  be  called  a  mere  assertion, 
and  it  is  true  that  it  cannot  be  proved  mathemati- 
cally, but  what  could  have  induced  a  man  like  Lord 
Derby  to  make  such  a  statement,  except  the  sense 
of  its  truth  produced  on  his  mind  by  long  experi- 
ence? 

However,  I  can  only  speak  for  myself,  and  of  my 
idea  of  work.  I  felt  satisfied  when  my  work  led  me 
to  a  new  discovery,  whether  it  was  the  discovery  of 
a  new  continent  of  thought,  or  of  the  smallest  desert 
island  in  the  vast  ocean  of  truth.  I  would  gladly  go 
so  far  as  to  try  to  convince  my  friends  by  a  simple 
statement  of  facts.  Let  them  follow  the  same  course 
and  see  whether  I  was  right  or  wrong.  But  to  make 
propaganda,  to  attempt  to  persuade  by  bringing 
pressure  to  bear,  to  canvass  and  to  organize,  to 
found  societies,  to  start  new  journals,  to  call  meet- 
ings and  have  them  reported  in  the  papers,  has  al- 
ways been  to  me  very  much  against  the  grain.  If  we 
know  some  truth,  what  does  it  matter  whether  a  few 
millions,  more  or  less,  see  the  truth  as  we  see  it? 
Truth  is  truth,  whether  it  is  accepted  now  or  in 
millions  of  years.  Truth  is  in  no  hurry,  at  least  it 
always  seemed  to  me  so.  When  face  to  face  with 
a  man,  or  a  body  of  men,  who  would  not  be  con- 
vinced, I  never  felt  inclined  to  run  my  head  against 
a  stone  wall,  or  to  become  an  advocate  and  use  the 
tricks  of  a  lawyer.  I  have  often  been  blamed  for  it, 
I  have  sometimes  even  regretted  my  indolence  or 


A  Confession  313 

my  quiet  happiness,  when  I  felt  that  truth  was  on 
my  side  and  by  my  side.  I  suppose  there  is  no 
harm  in  personal  canvassing,  but  as  much  as  I  dis- 
liked being  canvassed,  did  I  feel  it  degrading  to 
canvass  others.  I  know  quite  well  how  often  it 
happened  at  a  meeting  when  either  a  measure  or 
a  candidate  was  to  be  carried,  that  the  voters  had 
evidently  been  spoken  to  privately  beforehand,  had 
in  the  conscience  of  their  heart  promised  their  votes. 
The  facts  and  arguments  at  the  meeting  itself  might 
all  be  on  one  side,  but  the  majority  was  in  favour  of 
the  other.  Men  whose  time  was  of  little  value  had 
been  round  from  house  to  house,  a  majority  had 
been  compacted  into  an  inert  unreasoning  mass; 
and  who  would  feel  inclined  to  use  his  spade  of 
reason  against  so  much  unreason?  Some  people, 
more  honest  than  the  rest,  after  the  mischief  was 
done,  would  say,  "  Why  did  you  not  call?  why  did 
you  not  write  letters?  "  I  may  be  quite  wrong,  but 
I  can  only  say  that  it  seemed  to  me  like  taking  an 
unfair  advantage,  unfair  to  our  opponents,  and  al- 
most insulting  to  our  friends.  Still,  from  a  worldly 
point  of  view,  I  was  no  doubt  wrong,  and  it  is  cer- 
tainly true  that  I  was  often  left  in  a  minority.  My 
friends  have  told  me  again  and  again  that  if  a  good 
measure  or  a  good  man  is  to  be  carried,  good  men 
must  do  some  dirty  work.  If  they  cannot  do  that, 
they  are  of  no  use,  and  I  doubt  not  that  I  have  often 
been  considered  a  very  useless  man  by  my  political 
and  academic  friends,  because  I  trusted  to  reason 


314  My  Autobiography 

where  there  was  no  reason  to  trust  to.  I  was  asked 
to  write  letters,  to  address  and  post  letters,  to  prom- 
ise travelling  expenses  or  even  convivial  entertain- 
ments at  Oxford,  to  get  leaders  and  leaderettes  in- 
serted in  newspapers.  I  simply  loathed  it,  and  at 
last  declined  to  do  it.  If  a  measure  is  carried  by 
promise,  not  by  argument,  if  an  election  is  carried 
by  personal  influence,  not  by  reason,  what  happens 
ib  very  often  the  same  as  what  happens  when  fruit 
is  pulled  off  a  tree  before  it  is  ripe.  It  is  expected 
to  ripen  by  itself,  but  it  never  becomes  sweet,  and 
often  it  rots.  A  premature  measure  may  be  carried 
through  the  House  by  a  minister  with  a  powerful 
majority,  but  it  does  not  acquire  vitality  and  matur- 
ity by  being  carried;  it  often  remains  on  the  Stat- 
ute-book a  dead  letter,  till  in  the  end  it  has  to  be 
abolished  with  other  rubbish. 

However,  I  have  learnt  to  admire  the  indefati- 
gable assiduity  of  men  who  have  slowly  and  partially 
secured  their  converts  and  their  recruits,  and  thus 
have  carried  in  the  end  what  they  thought  right  and 
reasonable.  I  have  seen  it  particularly  at  Oxford, 
where  undergraduates  were  indoctrinated  by  their 
tutors,  till  they  had  taken  their  degree  and  could 
vote  with  their  betters.  I  take  all  the  blame  and 
shame  upon  myself  as  a  useless  member  of  Congre- 
gation and  Convocation,  and  of  society  at  large. 
I  was  wrong  in  supposing  that  the  walls  of  Jericho 
would  fall  before  the  blast  of  reason,  and  wrong  in 
abstaining  from  joining  in  the  braying  of  rams' 


A  Confession  315 

horns  and  the  shouts  of  the  people.  I  was  fortunate, 
however,  in  counting  among  my  most  intimate 
friends  some  of  the  most  active  and  influential  re- 
formers in  University,  Church,  and  State,  and  it  is 
quite  possible  that  I  may  often  have  influenced 
them  in  the  hours  of  sweet  converse;  nay,  that 
standing  in  the  second  rank,  I  may  have  helped  to 
load  the  guns  which  they  fired  off  with  much  effect 
afterwards.  I  felt  that  my  open  partnership  might 
3ven  injure  them  more  than  it  could  help  them;  for 
was  it  not  always  open  to  my  opponents  to  say  that 
I  was  a  German,  and  therefore  could  not  possibly 
understand  purely  English  questions?  Besides, 
there  is  another  peculiarity  which  I  have  often  ob- 
served in  England.  People  like  to  do  what  has  to 
be  done  by  themselves.  It  seemed  to  me  sometimes 
as  if  I  had  offended  my  friends  if  I  did  anything  by 
myself,  and  without  consulting  them.  Besides,  my 
position,  even  after  I  had  been  in  England  for  so 
many  years,  was  always  peculiar ;  for  though  I  had 
spent  nearly  a  whole  life  in  the  service  of  my 
adopted  country,  though  my  political  allegiance  was 
due  and  was  gladly  given  to  England,  still  I  was, 
and  have  always  remained,  a  German. 

And  next  to  Germany,  which  was  young  and 
full  of  ideals  when  I  was  young,  there  came  India, 
and  Indian  thought  which  exercised  their  quieting 
influence  on  me.  From  a  very  early  time  I  became 
conscious  of  the  narrow  horizon  of  this  life  on  earth, 
and  the  purely  phenomenal  character  of  the  world 


316  My  Autobiography 

in  which  for  a  few  years  we  have  to  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being.  As  students  of  classical  and 
other  Oriental  history  we  come  to  admire  the  great 
empires  with  their  palaces  and  pyramids  and  temples 
and  Capitols.  "What  could  have  seemed  more  real, 
more  grand,  more  likely  to  impress  the  young  mind 
than  Babylon  and  Xineveh,  Thebes  and  Alexandria, 
Jerusalem,  Athens,  and  Eome?  And  now  where 
are  they?  The  very  names  of  their  great  rulers  and 
heroes  are  known  to  few  people  only  and  have  to  be 
learnt  by  heart,  without  telling  us  much  of  those 
who  wore  them.  Many  things  for  which  thousands 
of  human  beings  were  willing  to  lay  down  their 
lives,  and  actually  did  lay  them  down,  are  to  us  mere 
w^ords  and  dreams,  myths,  fables,  and  legends.  If 
ever  there  was  a  doer,  it  was  Hercules,  and  now  we 
are  told  that  he  was  a  mere  myth ! 

If  one  reads  the  description  of  Babylonian  and 
Egyptian  campaigns,  as  recorded  on  cuneiform  cyl- 
inders and  on  the  walls  of  ancient  Egyptian  temples, 
the  number  of  people  slaughtered  seems  immense, 
the  issues  overwhelming;  and  yet  what  has  become 
of  it  all  ?  The  inroads  of  the  Huns,  the  expeditions 
of  Genghis  JQian  and  Timur,  so  fully  described  by 
historians,  shook  the  whole  world  to  its  foundations, 
and  now  the  sand  of  the  desert  disturbed  by  their 
armies  lies  as  smooth  as  ever. 

"What  India  teaches  us  is  that  in  a  state  advancing 
towards  civilization,  there  must  be  always  two  castes 
or  two  classes  of  men,  a  caste  of  Brahmans  or  of 


A  Confession  31^ 

thinkers,  and  a  caste  of  Kshatriyas,  who  are  to 
fight;  possibly  other  castes  also  of  those  who  are 
to  work  and  of  those  who  are  to  serve.  Great  wars 
went  on  in  India,  but  they  were  left  to  be  fought 
by  the  warriors  by  profession.  The  peasants  in  their 
villages  remained  quiet,  accepting  the  consequences, 
whatever  they  might  be,  and  the  Brahmans  lived 
on,  thinking  and  dreaming  in  their  forests,  satisfied 
to  rule  after  the  battle  was  over. 

And  what  applies  to  military  struggles  seems  to 
me  to  apply  to  all  struggles — political,  religious, 
social,  commercial,  and  even  literary.  Let  those 
who  love  to  fight,  fight ;  but  let  others  who  are  fond 
of  quiet  work  go  on  undisturbed  in  their  own  spe- 
cial callings.  That  was,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  the 
old  Indian  idea,  or  at  all  events  the  ideal  which 
the  Brahmans  wished  to  see  realized.  I  do  not  stand 
up  for  utter  idleness  or  sloth,  not  even  for  drones, 
though  nature  does  not  seem  to  condemn  even  hoc 
genus  altogether.  All  I  plead  for,  as  a  scholar  and 
a  thinker,  is  freedom  from  canvassing,  from  letter- 
reading  and  letter-writing,  from  committees,  deputa- 
tions, meetings,  public  dinners,  and  all  the  rest. 
That  will  sound  very  selfish  to  the  ears  of  practical 
men,  and  I  understand  why  they  should  look  upon 
men  like  myself  as  hardly  worth  their  salt.  But 
what  would  they  say  to  one  of  the  greatest  fighters 
in  the  history  of  the  world?  AVhat  would  they 
say  to  Julius  Caesar,  when  he  declares  that  the 
triumphs  and  the  laurel  wreaths  of  Cicero  are  as 


318  My  Autobiography 

far  nobler  than  those  of  warriors  as  it  is  a  greater 
achievement  to  extend  the  boundaries  of  the  Ro- 
man intellect  than  the  domains  of  the  Roman 
people? 


^ 


i 


INDEX 


Abiturientex,      Examina-      Atavistic  influences,  27 


tion  at  Zerbst,  106 
Acland,  Dr.,  245 
Admiration,  power  of,  90 
Aitarej-a-brahmana,  203 
All  Souls'  Fellowship,  23 

pinnacles,  225,   226 

Altenstein,  ^linister  of  In- 
struction, 131 
Anglican  system,  209 

—  orders,  291 
Anhalt-Dessau,  Duchy  of, 

46 
Antiquities  hid  in  etymol- 
ogies,  152-154 
Anti-Semitism,  70,  71 
Arnim,  Count,  110 
Arnold,  Matthew,  282-283 
Artistic     element    in     the 
Oxford  movement,  303, 
304 
Aryan  speakers  may  differ 
in  blood,  32 

—  and       aboriginal       lan- 

guages   of    India,    M. 

M.'s  paper  on,  210,  211 
Aryans  of  India,  197 
Aryas,  meaning  of,  32 
Asvalaj-ana  Sutras,  203 
Atavism,  17,  25,  26,  27,  30 


Autobiography-,  object  of 
M.  M.  in  writing  his, 
vi 

Autos,  the,  35 

Babies,  studying,  86 
Bach  family-,  34 
Baden-Powell,      Professor, 

238,  245 
Bandinell,  Dr.,  259-261 
Bardelli,  Abbe,  170 
Basedow,    von.    President, 

54 

—  the  Pedagogue,  55,  76 
Bathing,  77 

Bernaj's,  Professor,  69 
Bibliotheque  Royale,  167 
Biographies,  too  lenient,  2 

—  best  kind  of  history,  14 
Bismarck,  175 

Bliicher,  Marshal,  235 

Blum,  Eobert,  15 

Boden     Professorship     of 

Sanskrit,  vii 
Bodleian  Library,  258,  259 
Boehtlingk,  181,  182,  183 
Books,  scarcity  of,  67 
Bopp,  125,  132,  148,  151,  156 

—  his  lectures,  156,  157 


319 


320 


Index 


Brahmo  Somaj,  service  for 
the,  61 

Breakfast  parties,  205 

British  Association  at  Ox- 
ford, 210,  215 

Brockhaus,   Professor,   147 

Buckle,  287 

Bull,  Dr.,  40,  255,  256 

Bunsen,  Baron,  5,  13,  16 

—  first  visit  to,  190,  191 

—  his    kindness,    193,    199, 

221 
^Burg-on,  287 

/^^urnouf,  167,  169,  178,  179- 
''^ — ->~^182,  288 

Camerarius,  51 

Canon  of  Christ  Church, 
an  old,  256  258 

Canvassing-,  312,  313 

Carlyle,  310,  311 

Carus,  Professor,  98,  109 

Chartist  Deputation,  16 

Chretian,  287 

Christianity,  historical 
teaching  of,  in  Ger- 
many, 65,  287,  291 

—  an  historical  event,  300 
Church,  Dr.,  287 
Church,     not     for     young 

children,  60 
Circumstances,      influence 

of,  24 
Clarke,  Sir  Andrew,  82,  86 
Classics,   exaggerated 

praise  of  the,  101,  102 
reactions  from,  103 

—  nothing      takes       their 

place,  103 
Colebrooke,  192 
Colenso,  298,  305 


Collegien-Buch,  121,  123- 
125 

Comparative  Philology, 
l*rofessorship  of,  12 

Congregation  and  Convo- 
cation, why  M.  M.  kept 
away  from,  314,  315 

Conscience,  the  voice  of,  63 

Coxe,  Mr.,  258 

Cradock,  Dr.  and  Mrs.,  267 

Crawford,  Mr.,  the  Objec- 
tor General,  211 

Curtius,  132,  151 


Darwin,  2,  11,  17,  131 
David,  107,  109 
Deafness  in  M.  M.'s  fam- 
ily, 29 
De  Lisle,  293,  296 
Dessau,  Dukes  of,  46 

—  cheapness  of  life  at,  56, 

57 

—  Gottesacker  at,  57 

—  only  two  classes  at,  73 

—  trade  of,  73 

—  public  school  at,  76 

—  its  walls,  89 

—  M.  M.'s  world,  89 

—  simplicity  of  life  at,  92 
effect  on  the  charaa- 

ter,  92,  96 

—  moral  sayings,  96 
Devas,    ©«<{$,    144 
Dieu,  Deus,  Devas,  197 
Donkin,  Professor,  246 
Double  First,  240 
Drobisch,  129,  140,  142,  145 
Duels    at    University,    119, 

128,  129,  284,  286 
Dyaus,  Zeus,  lovis,  197 


1 


Index 


321 


Eakly  life,  roughing  it, 

91 
East  India  Company,  14 
East  India  House,  16,  215 
Eckart,  107,  109 
Eckstein,  Baron  d',  176,  177 
*•  Edinburgh  Eeview,"  first 

article  in,  222 
Egyptian  chronology,  199 
"  Elsie  Venner,"  31 
Emerson,  310 
Encaenia,  265,  266 

—  jokes  at,  265 

English  and  German  Doc- 
tors, 84,  85 
Environment,  17,  18,  25 
Ernst,  110 

Eternal,  ewig,  150,  151 
Etymologies,  152 
Evolution,  198 
Ewald,  298,  299,  305 

Fairy  tales,  influence  of, 

50-52 
Fear,  the  feeling  of,  88 
Feast  of  Tabernacles,  71 
Fellowships,     old     system 

of,  246,  247,  263 
Forbiger,  99 
French  master  at  Dessau, 

75 
French  Eevolution,  16,  216 
Friar  Bacon,  227 
Froge,  Professor,  109 

—  his   wife   and   Mendels- 

sohn, 109 
Froude,  J.  A.,  8,  287 
Funkhanel,  99 

Gaisford,  Dr.,  240,  252-254 
Gathy,  M.,  165,  172 


German  regiments,  hymns 
sung  by,  62 

—  students,  213 
Germany     and     Germans, 

prejudice    against,    20, 
21 

—  religious  feeling  in,  62 
Germ-plasm,  19,  28 
Gewandhaus  Concerts,  107 
Giordano    Bruno    on    Ox- 
ford, 228 

Goethe,  not  alvpays  ad- 
mired, 93 

Goldstiicker,  170-172 

Goldwin  Smith,  238 

Gottesacker  at  Dessau,  57 

Grabau,  M.  M,'s  concerts 
with,  110 

Grandfather  of  M.  M.,  79- 
81 

Grandmother  of  M.  M.,  53 

Grant,  Sir  Alexander,  272, 
273 

Greene's  Oxford,  227 

Greenhill,  Dr.,  245 

Grenville,  Lord,  229 

Greswell,  Mr.,  245 

Griffith,  Dr.,  Master  of 
University,  229 

Grimm,  151 

Griinder,  ein,  48 

Guizot,  182 

Habits   acquired   not   he- 

reditable,  33 
Hagedorn,  Baron,  112-114, 

162 

—  journey  with  him,  112 

—  his  plan  of  life  for  M. 

M.,  113 
Hahnemann,  82  et  seq.,  86 


322 


Index 


Hallam's  literary  dog,  209 
Hare,  Archdeacon,  205,  286 

—  visit  to,  208 
Hase,  185 

Haupt,  his  Latin  Society, 
121,  125 

—  his    dislike    to    modern 

philolog-y,  155,  156 
Hawkins,  Dr.,  240,  249 
Headaches,  suti'ering  from, 

81  et  seq. 

—  how  cured,  83 
Heads  of  Houses,  234,  264 

their  power,  239 

Hebdomadal     Board,     239, 

255 
Hebrew     taught     at     the 

Nicolai-Schule,  100 
Hegel,  2 

—  his  philosophy,  130-138 
Hegel's  idea,  133-135 

— "  Philosophy  of  Nat- 
ure," 135,  136 

— "  Philosophy  of  Kelig- 
ion,"  135,  142 

—  "  Metaphysics,"  136 
Heinroth,  139 
Helps,  Sir  Arthur,  266 
Hentzner,    his    description 

of  Oxford,  228 
Herbart,     school    of,    129, 

140,  142 
Heredity,  17 
Hermann,    Gottfried,    121, 

125,  128 

—  welcomed  modern  phi- 

lology, 155 

—  his  kindness  to  M.  M., 

156 
Hermae    round    the    The- 
atre, 264 


Highland  lady  at  Oxford, 

229 
Hiller,  107,  109 

—  his  oratorio,  110 
Historical  method,  198 

—  events,    their    influence 

transitory,  315,  316 

Hitopadesa,  51 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  6, 
266 

Honicke,  Dr.,  78 

Horace,  "  cheekiness  "  of, 
102 

Human  weaknesses,  allow- 
ance must  be  made 
for,  93,  94 

Humboldt,  181 


Imprisonment,  M.  M.'s,  at 
University,  118,  119 

Indian  thought,  influence 
of,  315,  317 

Indolence,  M.  M.'s,  312 

Inherited  and  acquired 
qualities,  difference 
between,  33 

Inspiration  and  infallibil- 
ity, 65,  66 

Institut  de  France,  186 

—  M.  M.  made  Member, 
186,  187 


Jenkins,  Dr.,  Master  of 
Balliol,  250 

Jerusalem,  Bishopric  of, 
293 

Jews  at  Dessau,  68,  70 

—  their  privileges  in  Ger- 
many, 70 


Index 


323 


Johnson,  Manuel,  286,  303 

—  his  art  treasures,  303 
Jowett,  Professor,  4,  6,  287 

Kaliwoda,  107 
Kant's  "  Kritik,"  138 
Kaspar  Hauser,  18 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  61 
Kingsley,  Charles,  5 

—  and  muscular  Christian- 

ity, 309 
Klengel,  147 
Kuhn,  A.,  154 

Lamartine,  177 
Language,  influence  of,  31 

—  differentiation  of,  31,  32, 

33 

—  science  of,  198 
Lassen,  23 
Latham,  Dr.,  210 
Layard,  11,  205 
Leipzig,  15 

—  school  at,  97 

—  University,  115 
Lepsius,  159 

Liberals  at  University,  117, 

118 
Liddell,  Dr.,  238 

—  and  Mrs.,  267 
Liddell's  Dictionary,  99 
Liszt,  107-111 
London,  188 

—  society,  peeps  into,  205 

—  M.    M.'s    social    difficul- 

ties, 206-208 
Longchamps,  167 
Lotze,  129,  136,  139,  287 
Louis    Lucien    Bonaparte, 

214 


Louis  Napoleon,  16 
Luther,  64 

—  his  love  of  fairy  tales, 

50,  51 

—  tercentenary,  105 

Maitland,  Sir  Peregrine, 

251 
Mammoth,  18 
Manning,  296 
Masters,    influence    of,    in 

German    and    English 

schools,  77 
Maurice,     Frederick,     205, 

286 

—  Pusey's  attack  on,  302 
Memory  changes,  39 
Mendelssohn  family,  33,  34 
Mendelssohn,     Felix,     107, 

110 

—  his  death,  110 

—  his    concert    for    Liszt, 

110,  111 
Mendelssohn's   "  Hymn   of 
Praise,"  105 

—  music  in  Oxford,  268 
Metternich,  72 

—  his  system,  117 
Mezzofanti,  30 
Michelet,  287 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  7,  14 

—  his  Autos,  7 

Mill,  Dr.,  mention  of  a 
Vedic  hymn  printed  at 
Calcutta,  192 

Milton  on  Oxford,  228 

Modern  Literature,  Pro- 
fessorship of,  12 

Mommsen,  186,  187 

Moncalm,  "  L'origine  de  la 
Pensee,"  10  n. 


3H 


Index 


Monk,  M.  M.'s  wish  to  be 

a,  24 
Monument-raising-,  47 
Morier,  275-279 
Mother,  M.  M.'s,  57-59 

—  her  relations,  54,  55 
Mozley,  287 

MSS.,  copying-,  179 
Mulde,   excursion   on  foot 

along-  the,  112 
Muller,  Wilhelm,  47,  48 

—  his  poems,  48 

—  his  family,  52,  53 

—  his  home  and  society,  55 

—  early  death,  56 

—  monument  to,  49 
Music,  its  influence  on  M. 

M.,  67 

—  wished   to  make  it  his 

career.  111 
*•  Mysteres  de  Paris,"  174 

Natural  Science  and 
Mathematics  little 

taught  at  Nicolai- 
Schule,  100 

Neander,  21,  22 

Newman,  286,  292-296 

—  want  of  openness  in  his 

friends,  292,  296 

—  his  influence,  293 

—  on       *'  Lives       of       the 

Saints,"  294,  295 
Newspapers   few  in   num- 
ber, 71 

—  influence  of  modern,  72 

—  old,  74 
Nicolai-Schule,  99 

—  chiei!y  for  classics,  99- 

101 
Niebuhr,  191,  289 


Niedner,  Dr.,  127,  137,  140 
Nirukta,  the,  203 
Nobbe,  Dr.,  99 

—  his  testimonial,  105 

Old  and  young  men,  36 
Oriental  languages,  146 
Orleans,  Duchesse  d',  177 
Oxford,  first  visit  to,  213 

—  settled  at,  220 

—  social  life  at,  220,  221 

—  changes  in,  223-226 

—  new  buildings,  224,  225 

—  conservative,  226 

—  Greene's,  227 

—  Hentzner's     description 

of,  228 

—  Giordano  Bruno  on,  228 

—  Milton  on,  228 

—  society  in  1810,  229-231 

—  great    changes    in,    243, 

244 

—  society  at,  in  the  forties 

and  fifties,  244,  245 

—  city  society  of,  245,  246 

—  high  tone  of  talk,  284 

—  theological    atmosphere 

at,  286 

—  trivial  questions  of  cere- 

mony in,  291,  292,  300, 
301 

Palgeave,  274,  287 
Palm,  Dr.,  99 
Palmerston,  Lord,  16,  217 
Panini,  182 

—  his  grammar,  204 
Pantscliatantra,  51 
Paper,  scarcity  of,  67 
Parental  influences,  27 
Paris,  15,  162 


Index 


325 


Paris,  journey  to,  163,  164 

—  meals  there,  166 

—  hard   struggles   in,    173, 

283 
Patagonians    as    types    of 

humanity,  88 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  205 
Philanthropinum,  54,  76 
Philology,  love  of,  121 
Philosophy,  studied  by  M. 

M.,  129,   137,   146 
Physical  science,  revolt  of, 

against  Hegel,  135 
Pillar  and  pillow,  189 
••  Pitar,"  father,  153 
Pitcairn  Islands,  18 
Plumptre,  Dr.,  213,  215,  265 
Poems,  M.  M.'s,  104,  105 
Pollen,  287 
Pott,  151,  160 
Pranks  at  University,  119, 

120 
"  Presence  of  mind,"  262 
Prichard,  Dr.,  211,  212,  221 
Professor's     lectures     and 

fees,  121,  122 
Professors,  feeling  of  Ger- 
man students  for  their, 
127 
Proto-Aryan  language,  200 
Prowe,  Professor,  116,  117 
Public     schools     in     Ger- 
many, 98 
in   England   need  re- 
forming, 242 
Pusey,  Dr.,  261,  299,  302 


Race,  differentiation  of,  35 
Rawlinson,  Sir  H.,  205 
Reay,  Professor,  260 


Reinaud,  186 

Religion,  practical,  305,  306 

Religious  feeling  in  Ger- 
many, 68 

great  tolerance  in,  70, 

71 

—  sentiments      must      be 

taught  at  home,  62 

—  teaching  in  school,  63 
Renan,    185,    186,   288,   289, 

290,  305 
Research,  fellowships  for, 

270 
Revelation,  subjective  not 

objective,  66 

—  in  the  old  sense,  288 
Rigaud,  John,  287 
Rig-veda,  how  to  publish 

the,  181,  182 

—  printing  of,  222 
Roman    Catholic    Church, 

English  national  feel- 
ing opposed  to,  296, 
297 

Rose-bush,  vision  of  the, 
43,  44 

Roth,  170,  171 

Routh,  Dr.,  247-249 

Rubens,  Levy,  75 

Ruskin,  224 

Russell,  Sir  W.,  37,  190 

Sadowa,  and  Sixty-six,  38 
St.     Hilaire,     Barthelemy, 

170 
St.  Petersburg,  idea  of  go- 
ing to,  181,  183 
Salis-Schwabe,  Madame,  98 
Salmon  at  Dessau,  56,  57 
"  Salve  caput  cruentatum," 
59 


326 


Index 


Sanskrit  Professorship,  vii, 
12 

—  chair  of,  at  Leipzig,  147 

—  feeling  against,  147 

—  unedited  works,  204 
Savigny,  Professor,  122 
Say  ana's      Commentary, 

202  204 

Schelling,  156,  195,  287,  289 

Schlegel's  "  Weisheit  der 
Indier,"  146 

Schleswig  -  Holstein  ques- 
tion, 276 

Schloezer,  Karl  von,  174, 
176 

School  teaching,  67,  68 

—  success  at,  104,  105 

—  routine  of  learning,  120 
Schopenhauer,  289 
Selbst-Kritik,  6 

Self,  the,  42 

Sellar,  Professor,  273,  274 

Seminaries  and  societies  at 

University,  123 
Senatus    Academicus,    236, 

237 
Shelley,  233 
Simolin,  Baron,  55 
Sister,  M.  M.'s,  115,  116 
Spiegel,  Professor,  147 
Sport,   M.   M.'s  dislike  of, 

80 
Stanislas  Julien,  185 
Stanley,  Dr.,  5,  41,  238,  286, 

287,  302 
Steel  pens,  67 
Stories  in  Oxford,  regular 

descent  of,  248 
Strauss,  21,  305 
Stubengelehrter,  308,  311 
Student  Clubs,  116 


Student  life  in  Paris,  184 
Sunday  games  at  the  Ob- 
servatory, 298 
Sykes,  Colonel,  16 
Symons,  Dr.,  239,  240,  251 
Sympathy  in  the  joys  and 
sufferings    of    others, 
41,  42 

Tatt,  Dr.,  238 

Talents  in  families,  33-35  v 

Taylorian      Professorship, 

"  22 
Telegraphs,  old,  72 
Testimonials,  4 
Thalberg,  111 
Thirlwall,  205 
Thomson,    Dr.    and    Mrs., 

267,  268,  280,  281 
Tippoo  Sahib's  tiger,  215 
Travelling  in  the  thirties, 

111 
Troyer,  M.,  and  the  Duch- 

esse  de  Wagram,  184 
Truth,  312 

Turanian     languages,     M. 
M.'s  letter  on,  160,  161 
Tutors  and  Fellows,  236 

their    influence,    241, 

268,  269 

University,   M.    M.'s   life 
at,  115,  116 

—  pranks,  119,  120 

—  duels  at,  119,  128-130 
University  Press,  218,  219 
Upanishads,  169 

Van  der  Weyeb,  205 
Veda,  9,  12  14,  148,  168 


Index 


327 


Veda,  a  m.ystery,  191,  194 

—  MSS.  of,  in  India,  192 
brought    to    Europe, 

193 

—  oldest  of  real  books,  195 

—  primitive      thought     in 

the,  195,  197-199 

—  date  of,  200 

—  translations  of,  201 

—  East  India  Company  and 

the,  201 

—  forming  correct  text  of 

the  Rig-,  202 

—  enormous       work       in- 

volved, 204 
Vedic  scholarship,  193 
Veih,  home,  153 
Vernunft  and  Verstand,  143 
Vigfusson,  Dr.,  254 
Voltairian    philosophy    at 

Oxford,  307 

Weismann,  27-30 


Weisse,    129,    132-135,    139- 

142,  287 
VVellesley,  Dr.,  304 
Wellington,    Duke    of,    16, 

40,  205 
Westminster     Abbey     and 

St.  Peter's,  304 
Wilberforce,    Samuel,    207, 

208 
Wilson,  Professor,  158,  159 
Wiseman,  296 
Wolf,  F.  A.,  48 
Wolseley,  Lord,  266 
Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  264 
Wright,  Dr.,  261,  262 

Youth  painted  by  the  old, 
35,  36 

Zerbst,  examined  at,  106 
—  M.    M.'s    examiners    at, 

106 
Zeus,  Dyaus,  148,  149 


1 


OTHER  BOOKS  BY  MAX  MULLER 

Auld  Lang  Syne 

First  Series.     Illustrated.     8vo,  $2.00 

"  This  book,  the  fruit  of  enforced  leisure,  as  its 
author  tells  us,  is  a  charming  mass  of  gossip  about 
people  whom  Professor  Max  Muller  has  known 
during  his  long  career — musicians,  literary  men, 
princes,  and  beggars.  The  last  class  is  not,  per- 
haps, the  least  interesting  or  amusing.  To  our 
mind,  however,  the  chapter  on  musicians,  with  its 
dehghtful  pictures  of  the  author's  early  life,  and 
the  naive  confessions  as  to  musical  tastes,  with 
some  of  the  stories  about  celebrated  composers, 
forms  the  most  interesting  portion  of  a  work  which 
has  not  one  dull  page." — Tiie  Spectator. 

"  One  of  the  most  charming  examples  of  rem- 
iniscent literature  that  has  recently  seen  the  light." 

— New  York  Sun. 


Auld  Lang  Syne 

Second  Series.  My  Indian  Friends.  8vo,  $2.00. 

"The  professor's  'Indian  Friends'  are  not  all 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  His  oldest  friends  are 
in  the  Veda,  about  which  he  has  always  loved  to 
write.  Indeed,  he  spent  the  best  years  of  his  life 
over  the  text  of  the  Rig  Veda,  and  has  a  clear 
right  to  be  heard  upon  the  classic  he  has  done  so 
much  to  make  familiar.  .  .  .  But  the  real  charm 
of  his  recollections  lies  rather  in  their  peaceful 
kindliness,  in  their  wide  and  tolerant  sympathies, 
and  in  their  earnest  aim,  which  will  surely  be 
attained  in  some  measure,  of  bringing  what  is  best 
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Science  of  Language 

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tution. Nnv  Edition  from  New  Plates.  Largely 
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in  the  Science  of  Language  ;  The  Classificatory  Stage  in  the 
Science  of  Language :  The  Genealogical  Classification  of 
Languages :  Comparative  Grammar ;  The  Cottstituent  Ele- 
ments of  Language ;  The  Morphological  Classification  of 
Languages  ;  The  Theoretical  Stage  in  the  Science  of  Lan- 
guage—Origin of  Language :  Genealogical  Tables  of  Lan- 
guages. 

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and  hardest  of  studies,  analytic  philology  and 
mental  philosophy,  are  made  at  once  lucid  and 
attractive,  is  an  acquisition  for  which  all  students 
of  those  mysteries  have  reason  to  be  grateful." 

— New  York  Evening  Post. 


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Thousands:  Evil :  Punishment  :  Old  Age  :  Self:  The  World: 
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Impurity:  The  Just :  The  Way:  Miscellaneous:  The  Down- 
ward Course  :  The  Elephant  :  Thirst  :  The  Bhikshu  {Mendi- 
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